All That's Left
by Jerrath92
Summary: No matter how much the others tried to convince him, he knew it was his fault. He waited for death to swoop down and claim him so that he could finally tell his long-dead family how very sorry he was. Until then, however, he would live because he had to. Please review!
1. Chapter 1: Head for the Turnpike

**Jim…what an underrated character portrayed by an amazing actor. Andrew Rothenberg's depiction of the mechanic was heart-wrenching in the small amount of screen time he had in the first season. He was killed off rather quickly, don't you think? There could have been so much MORE to his character but no, he had to get bitten. I think there's a lot of underlying story to what he told the other survivors and now I have the opportunity to delve deeper into it. Comments and feedback are appreciated and encouraged, but more so than anything, I just hope you enjoy reading!**

_He threw the contents of the coat closet aside, glad for once that his boys hadn't listened to him when he said that the closet was not to be used for their sport gear. He found their two wooden bats and sprinted back into the kitchen where his wife and two sons were waiting, peering through the blinds at the massacre on the street. He pulled them away and handed one bat to his oldest son Dylan before he stuffed a few more items into his backpack._

_"You take this and use it however you can to keep those people back, hear me?"_

_"You aren't telling me that we're going out there?" asked Tara in horror. "Jim, those things are eating people alive! We wouldn't make it ten feet."_

_"It's gonna get a lot worse and then we'll have no way out at all. Y'wanna wait around for that? Wait 'til the streets are completely covered and then try to escape? Honey, if we don't make a run for it now, we ain't gonna ever get outta this house. We gotta go _now_."_

_"What if one of those people grab us, Dad?" asked his younger son Mark. Looking down, Jim saw his own reflection in the boy's wide brown eyes. Mark looked more like him, lanky with a pointed face, rather large ears, and a bit of a saddened expression carved into his features. But now he was absolutely terrified at the prospect of walking out the front door. For a boy of nine, he could sense that something greater was at stake than just losing his family. He felt the fear of dying and at such a young age, Jim could tell that his son's mind was shattering inside._

_"Nobody's gonna hurt you, buddy, I promise," said Jim reassuringly, ruffling Mark's hair and zipping his backpack shut. "Nobody," he repeated as he looked at Tara and Dylan. "If we stick close together we should be fine, but we gotta leave now while there's still rescue teams patrolling the area."_

_"This is insane," said Tara, touching Jim's forearm to try and reason with him. She pleaded silently for him to reconsider, but he shook his head and handed her the butcher knife from the cutlery drawer. "Go for the heart, the lungs, or the head," he advised. "That should put 'em down."_

_Suddenly they heard a crash from the back yard and Dylan rushed to the sliding door, pulling the curtain back to get a good look. "Dad, there's two of them out there!"_

_"Come back over here!" shouted Jim, standing just behind the closed front door, sweating profusely as he listened to the moaning and screaming from out on the street. "Dylan, you protect your mom and brother at all costs and do exactly as I say once we're out there, do you understand?"_

_"Yes, Dad."_

_"Dad, why can't we just go in the car?" asked Mark, clinging to Jim's pant leg._

_"'Cuz I left it at the garage so that I could get home faster," said Jim. It was difficult to explain to a nine-year-old how he had had to run for his life from the car garage ten blocks away when some of those rabid people broke in and started feasting on his boss. He hadn't had any time to grab keys to one of the cars, but once he started out for home, he was glad that he hadn't tried to drive back since the roads were clogged with crashed vehicles. Now, however, he was repenting his decision, wishing for something with four wheels to transport his family out of the hostile area as fast as he could._

_"Jim, please, just listen to me…"_

_"No, you listen to me! We ain't gonna make it if we continue sittin' here on our asses and pretendin' like the world ain't going to shit around us! We won't survive, especially if those people are swarming around the house and breaking in like those two in the back are about to do. If we don't run, we don't live; it's as simple as that."_

_The sliding door broke open as the rabid people smashed through it. Jim flung the door open and pushed his family out in front of him to defend their escape. Taking Mark by the hand and stuffing him into Tara's arms, he broke right and started jogging up the street with his eyes set on the highway which looked blocked, but also deserted. If they could just make it to the turnpike…_

_"_Jim!_" Tara screamed and he turned around as he saw one man pursuing them, bits of flesh and droplets of blood clinging to his wide open mouth. Jim urged his family to keep going while he swung the bigger of the two bats into its face, knocking out several teeth. He didn't stop to do a double tap as he ran to catch up with Tara and the boys._

_Mark was panicking in Tara's arms and Jim saw a teardrop or two clinging to his eyelashes. He knew in that moment that something inevitable had changed in his son. Mark _never_ cried, not even when he had fallen down two flights of stairs and hit his forehead or when he had crashed into the neighbor's car on his bicycle and torn most of the skin off of his knee or even when Tara's father had died, but now, _now_ he seemed to sense something irreversible was about to happen and he was reacting in the only humane way possible._

_"Dad, there's more coming from up ahead!" Dylan yelled._

_"Just keep going and head for the highway and don't you dare stop!" Jim responded, hurrying ahead to intercept the people before Tara and the boys were overwhelmed. He swung again and again almost as if he were back in baseball practice listening to the coach berate him for his lousy skills to get him riled up and improve his technique. His muscles bulged and his veins popped out as blood sprayed outwards from a woman's skull and doused his shirt._

_"Dad!"_

_Whirling around Jim saw that his family were almost to the fence that cut the suburban area off from the highway, but several crazed people were closing in fast and he had to abandon his present position to rush to them and begin clubbing away. Dylan came at one girl about his size with a perfect golfer's stroke and smashed her nose in._

_"Tara, get over the fence now!"_

_But Tara was screaming, clasping hands with Mark as she kissed his forehead and told him to run. The boy took off down the perimeter of the fence before Jim could call him back and a couple of the people from the main group broke off to chase after him._

_"Mark, come back! _Mark!_" Jim cried._

_He felt Tara grab onto him in horror as three madmen seized her hair and pulled her down with Jim underneath. Jim kicked out at one in the face and beat the bat against its skull. Beside him the other two men were—were, dear God, they were _eating _her. Tara's screams made his ribs vibrate, made his head want to break into a million pieces as she tried to stab at the men who held her down even as they tore into her neck. Jim crawled backwards, bat still in hands as he saw Dylan go down underneath another four mutated beings. His son's cries of agony tore at Jim's heart and made his blood run cold. For a moment he stopped breathing, stopped thinking so that all of his attention could be focused on watching his family being torn apart in front of him while he sat there and couldn't do a damn thing._

_Then he realized that none of the people were paying him the slightest attention. He leapt to his feet, threw his bat over the fence, and then climbed after it. As he hit the ground he rolled and snatching up the bat, kept going, feeling the backpack thump against him with every beat of his heart. He found that tears were streaming down his grimy face as he ran for the turnpike._

_He didn't know why he kept going. The guilt began to eat away at his soul, ripping him into pieces of human trash as he watched Tara and Dylan's last moments in his head over and over again. He tried to convince himself that Mark had made it out, but he knew he was only giving himself false hope. They were gone in every sense of the word and it was all his fucking fault. He had insisted, demanded that they leave to reach safety when their house was safer than any other place they could have gone. If they had barricaded themselves in the garage or basement, they would have survived, waited until the storm died down and then gone out looking for help, calling for assistance, but no, it hadn't turned out that way. He had led his family straight into the arms of the devil, right up to the gates of death and his sins should have cost him his life. He should have died right alongside them, but he had been given a chance to escape and he took that chance not because he wanted to, but because some faraway part of him told him to run._

_In time he slowed down to a miserable trudge and when he finally found himself walking west on the overpass to I-90, he was about ready to give up. Of everything he had packed, he had forgotten food, water, and his anti-depressant medication. He wouldn't last long on clothes and memoirs, especially if half the clothes weren't even his. He fell to his knees, sobbing and pounding the blacktop with his fist until his bruised knuckles opened up and spilt blood and even then he used his other hand, punishing himself for what he had done. He didn't care if his shouts carried. At this point he would gladly welcome death…_

_A shadow blocked out the sun and heat as it passed over him and came to a stop. Dehydrated and utterly spent, he glanced up, squinting at what he saw: a creamy-yellow colored 1977 Winnebago. He saw movement in the driver's seat and a moment later an older man appeared, wearing a light tan fisherman's hat that almost blended in to the RV behind him. He had a powdery white beard streaked with bits of multicolor gray. Behind him there stood a woman with light blonde hair and a younger girl, perhaps a teenager or early adult with the same colored hair._

_The man knelt down beside him and spoke, though at first Jim heard no words come out of the man's mouth._

_"I said, are you alright, son?" asked the man. Turning his head over his shoulder, he called, "Andrea, get me a bottle of water out of the fridge back there. This guy's severely dehydrated." The older woman handed the man a sealed store-bought water bottle which was fogging up as it was exposed to the Georgian heat. The man uncapped the bottle for him and held it out, but Jim was too weary to even try and accept it._

_"Have you been bitten?" asked the man, suddenly looking concerned._

_Jim shook his head once, left, right, and center before he collapsed face first on the blacktop. He felt the man's aged but strong hands grab him by the arm and hoist him up. The two women rushed out to help him and together the three of them carried him inside where they placed him on the left of the two twin-sized beds after prying the bat from his hands and removing his backpack. The younger woman dabbed at his forehead with a damp cloth while the other one sponged his mouth with another to help him rehydrate._

_"What's your name, son?" asked the man as he checked Jim's temperature and began to bandage his knuckles with toilet paper._

_"Jim…" he managed to say._

_"Well, I think you're lucky you didn't die out there in the heat. You're coming with us, though exactly where we're going I don't know. My name's Dale and this is Andrea and Amy. I picked them up about fifteen miles back."_

_Jim found that he didn't really care what Dale had to say. He saw the woman Andrea's face regarding him with concern and then passed out._

Jerking out of his nightmare, Jim sat up on the same bed to the sounds of screaming from outside the RV.


	2. Chapter 2: No One's Business

On the other twin bed Dale sat up, instinctively reaching for his Hawkeye with his tired eyes coming awake as his fear mounted. Jim snatched up his bat which he kept close at hand and dug his feet into his shoes without bothering to lace them up as he dashed towards the door. He saw heads poking out of their tents in the moonlight, but they were all looking in the direction of the main camp off to the right. Andrea had her arms around her younger sister as they watched a lone walker advancing through camp towards them, the only exposed people it could see. Nearly face-planting as he tripped over his bootlaces, Jim hurried towards the women, swinging the bat back and aiming for the walker's head as if it were the make-or-break baseball pitch in the big game. He brought the bat around and nearly cleaved the damned thing's skull off as he hit its temple with an unforgivable thwack from the wooden curve. He hit it again for good measure, but stepped back as blood began to pool out around the circumference of the head.

From behind him someone gave him a bit of a shove so that he nearly stepped into the seeping blood. Daryl Dixon arrived on scene, following the walker up with a shot to the eyebrow as a demonstration of his contribution to putting it down.

"Damn it, y'couldda left somethin' f'me t'actually kill," he said irritably.

Jim ignored the comment, looking to the two sisters who gave him a fervent nod of thanks. Dale came around to Jim's side, shaking his head at the corpse. "Did anyone hear the alarms go off?"

"No," said Amy shakily. "I was just coming out to make sure that the fire was still going and I saw it."

"So y'screamed?" asked Daryl.

"Well, what else was I supposed to do?" Amy demanded, looking hurt.

"Kill it—again," Daryl suggested. "Y'got a weapon inside the tent, don'tcha? Pick it up and use the damn thing!"

"Her first instinct wasn't to fight back, Daryl, it was to alert someone who could help her," said Dale kindly. "Everyone's okay so there's no point in arguing."

"Y'all're lucky Merle's a heavy sleeper, otherwise he wouldda come out here and been real pissed that he didn't get a share've the action," said Daryl, heading off back towards his and his brother's tent.

"Drugs tend to make people sleep heavy," said Jim under his breath, though from the look Dale gave him, he thought the older man might have heard. He found a roll of paper towels and tore off two sheets to disinfect his bat as Amy persuaded her sister to go back inside their tent. The elder of the two sisters stepped closer in to the fire, watching him. While he pretended like she was not there, he used a few droplets of water to clear off the last bit of rotten blood. Finally, she spoke.

"Jim, are you alright? You're pale and sweaty-,"

"'M'okay," said Jim, swinging the bat to clear out the moisture. "Go back to sleep."

After nearly a month and a half of getting as acquainted with these people as he cared to, he liked it best when they just left him alone and didn't ask questions. He wasn't grateful to Dale and the women for saving him out on the highway, but he appreciated their kindness when others mistook Jim's silence for anger and shunned him. Out of everyone in the camp, five people made a habit of saying good morning to him, of inviting him to participate in various activities, of offering to help him with his own chores, but he still sought solitude from them. His life had very little meaning nowadays and so he just waited out the days, existing in a world that he didn't want to continue living in simply because three strangers had denied him suicide. And yet he found himself rushing to the rescue whenever something threatened the camp, particularly if the women or Lori Grimes's son were involved because his fatherly instinct came into play. This was something that couldn't be helped; he had been born with it and shielded his family with it before their deaths. It wasn't his place to make decision for anyone—he had learned the hard way the cost of making a choice for someone other than himself—but the adrenaline still pumped through his body whenever he saw one of those walking corpses.

He wanted to get there first and finish them off before anyone else as a way to vent out his anger at the walkers that had eaten his family, to seek some revenge and satisfaction, and to fight back at the guilt brewing inside him. But the appearances of walkers this far up the mountain were few and far between and so his thirst for justice was not often quenched, in which case he had to let the remorse feed on him in a fashion reminiscent of the dead eating his loved ones. By now he had hoped that he would have just dropped dead from the lack of will to live, but his nightmares awoke him every single night as blood pounded in his ears and he could hear Tara and Dylan's screams echoing around him. Afterwards he would lay awake for hours until the sun came up and went about his chores, trying not to think about anything as he waited for it to get late enough to try and go back to bed.

Conflicted was the word. He didn't want to withstand the torture that life brought anymore, but he felt that he deserved this punishment for his sins. Several times he had seen Dale leave his rifle leaning against the Winnebago and had been tempted to clamp his teeth around the barrel and pull the trigger, but his cowardice didn't allow himself the luxury of suicide. Why, then, did he go to such lengths to take down walkers if he could end his misery by allowing it to feast on him as it had his family? He had no answer for himself.

Now, as he sat by the fireside cleaning his bat, he wished that he had thought to wipe off his face and relax the tension in it before coming out of the RV because Andrea was starting to pick up on Dale's annoying habit of nosing into people's business.

"Jim, the few times I've heard you speak since we found you on I-90, half of what you said was a lie and you're not convincing anyone when you say that you're alright. We're concerned about you, that's all, so why do you shut us out?"

"Don't see that it's any've your business," said Jim shortly, standing up. He hadn't made it four steps back to the RV when Andrea grabbed his wrist. He was about to shake her off when his eyes glazed over in memory. For a fleeting moment he saw himself standing in his kitchen with his boys looking around wildly as walkers began to break through the sliding glass door and Tara pleading with him to reconsider running for the highway. Her grip had been strong and as Jim slammed back into reality, staring at Andrea, he felt that if he had had his eyes closed, he would not have been able to tell the difference between the two women. Their hands felt the same: soft, thin, and smooth. They looked nothing alike, for Tara had had dark brown hair like him and caramel-hazel eyes with a heart-shaped face and pinkish-tan skin whereas Andrea was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman with a very pale complexion and a more oval shaped face. But they both had held onto him, begging him to give them something that he thought wasn't theirs to have. Tara had wanted reassurance that they were going to make it out alive; Andrea wanted him to spill out his heart and tell her what it was that made him this empty man.

"Jim, please, we're not monsters, none of us are," she said beseechingly.

_With the exception of Ed Peltier_.

"We just want to help you, if you'd only let us. Whatever it is that's bothering you, we'll see you through it. Every day you get up and do the exact same thing, talking to no one, accepting help from no one. We're lucky if we can get three words out of you throughout the space of five days. You're not just hurting yourself by being so distant, you're hurting us, but I don't mean that in a selfish way."

Jim couldn't believe what he was hearing. _He _was hurting _them_? And yet they were so concerned about him? They didn't know a damn thing about him.

"We—_I_ want to help you in any way I can. There's only so few of us here and every human being is valuable, so I just want to make sure that you're okay."

"Do I _look_ okay to you?" Jim challenged in a tone that came off a little stronger than he had meant it to.

"No, that's why I asked in the first place."

"Look, if I'd wanted help, I wouldda asked for it, but I didn't, so I don't and I'll thank you to not meddle in things that don't concern you from now on."

Andrea let go of his wrist and chewed on her lower lip for a moment. "That must have been a full sentence right there. I think that's progress." With that she turned around and went back into her tent, zipping the flap shut.

Adding to the weight of guilt he felt every day, Jim now felt a slight twinge at the way he had treated her, but who was she to get involved in places where she wasn't wanted? She wasn't his wife, or his sister, or any sort of acquaintance as far as he was concerned. No one here was. He knew as much about them as they knew about him, though perhaps a little more since he spent a good amount of time watching the camp's activities, unintentionally picking up on habits.

Resting his bat on his shoulder, he suddenly remembered that there was someone on watch atop the RV and glancing up, he saw that it was Shane Walsh, the lawman, the leader, and the only one of the five people who simultaneously encouraged his participation while not prying into his business. Now, however, Shane was tactful enough to pretend to be watching the trail rather than look at him, but Jim knew that he was just trying to spare both of them embarrassment.

Inside the RV Jim kicked his boots off and rested his bat next to his pillow. Dale came out of the bathroom, blowing his nose on a wad of toilet paper, spotted Jim, and gave a sigh.

"Had another nightmare?" he asked in that very unabashed manner of his.

Sitting down on the edge of his bed, Jim shook his head and became incredibly interested in the fingernails on his left hand. Dale sat down on his own bed so that their knees were almost touching since there wasn't much personal space.

"When are you going to tell me how you ended up on that highway, Jim? I know that the reason for it is also the reason that you can't sleep."

"I'll tell you when I see that it's any've your damn business."

"Well, as long as you're a member of this group, you're everyone's damn business, whether you like it or not. I'm not going to tell anyone, I promise, but I think I can guess that it has something to do with your family because you've been in a rut of depression just like I was in when I lost my wife."

Jim turned over quickly so that Dale wouldn't see him bite his lip to fight back tears, but the older man wasn't finished. "How did you end up alone, Jim?"

"Been alone," said Jim. "Depression does that to people."

This was partially true. Since he had lost his family at the same time that he had stopped taking his anti-depression pills, his life had hit a downward spiral and was being sucked into the drain really fast.

Seeing that he was defeated, Dale gave up prodding him for answers. Jim heard him lay down and was glad that he had stopped when he did, otherwise Jim felt that he might have had to whack him with the bat just to shut him up for once.


	3. Chapter 3: Clothes and Watch Duty

As always, he was the first one up, but only because he hadn't been able to go back to sleep after the walker incident. Yawning, he took one of his four shirts and his garage suit into the bathroom to change. His reflection stared miserably back at him with dark bruise-colored circles under his eyes and a waxy-looking complexion. He supposed that he had looked like this for a while now and the rest of him probably didn't look any better since he knew he had lost weight over the past month and a half. This was due to his lack of appetite, his tendency to sweat off all of the food he did digest, and his depression.

He checked on the campfires to make sure they were still going and headed off down the trail to secure the alarms. No one else was up and about yet, but that was how he preferred them to be. The best company was the type that didn't talk to him.

However, he was not as alone as he thought, for halfway up the trail he saw Carl Grimes digging in the back of the Jeep Wrangler for something. When he heard Jim approaching, he glanced up in slight alarm, but gave a smile nonetheless.

"Morning, Jim," he said brightly to which Jim gave a brief nod. "I know I shouldn't be out here by myself, but all of my clothes are dirty and I was hoping that I still had some buried under here somewhere since laundry day isn't until tomorrow." The boy gave Jim a bit of a pleading look, one that Jim had seen Mark give him numerous times when he didn't want Tara to find something out. The resemblance in Carl and Mark's personalities was extraordinary, if not even a little scary.

Carl obviously took Jim's silence the wrong way and added, "Please don't tell my mom. She's concerned about everything I do and she's—she's not the same since my dad died. I don't want to worry her." Again, Jim nodded, and looking grateful, Carl returned to his search.

Jim could see that the boy was going to have no luck whatsoever in finding any clothes and so he snapped his fingers twice to get Carl's attention and beckoned him back to the RV. Underneath his bed Jim dug out the backpack he had been wearing when Dale and the women picked him up. At the bottom of the pack he found two of Mark's shirts, a pair of shorts, and a wadded up set of socks. He hadn't yet gone through all of the contents of the pack simply because he refused to believe that these items were his only remaining memories of his family, but he felt that if he gave them up he might ease some of his pain, knowing that they weren't underneath him as he tried to sleep at night, tormenting him. Holding the small bundle to his chest, he backed out of the room so as to not wake Dale and handed the clothes off to Carl who looked positively ecstatic at the present. As he opened his mouth to thank Jim the two heard Lori Grimes's voice ring out in panic.

"Carl? _Carl!_"

"I'm here, Mom," said the boy, waving his free arm. He quailed under his mother's furious stare as she came marching over to him. She took hold of his shoulders and shook him ever so slightly more out of a mother's worry than a mother's rage, but her face was still set in anger.

"I told you that you don't leave my side when I'm not awake. You wait until we're both up and then you can leave the tent, do you remember me saying that?"

"Jim was just giving me some clothes; mine are all dirty," said Carl earnestly, holding up the clothes for his mother to see. Jim felt the tiniest bit of regret for the boy.

Lori's expression softened a bit when she saw the gift and nodded gratefully to Jim, but thankfully she didn't ask him where _he_ had gotten the clothes. She instructed Carl to return to their tent and then held out her hand to Jim which he took rather reluctantly.

"I hope he wasn't any trouble; he tends to ask a lot of questions."

Jim thought back to his—from lack of a better word—conversation with Carl not six minutes ago and could only remember one question that he had asked which wasn't even an annoying one. He shook his head to Lori and setting his bat on his shoulder, walked off.

It was then that he realized that there was no one on watch above the RV. He envisioned the schedule Dale had drawn up for guard duty and recalled that after Shane, was the younger man Glenn and then Ed Peltier was on duty. It didn't surprise him that Ed had shirked his task, but he figured that once someone found out, there would most likely be an argument. Over his shoulder he saw Lori with her hands on her hips, looking up at the empty guard seat atop the RV and knew that the argument would probably happen sooner than he expected. He trailed his bat on the ground as he set off into the wooded area for no particular reason.

It was far more peaceful out here than back at camp, but it was also ten times more dangerous and therefore Jim was on his guard, listening for any unusual sound. He paused, feeling something in his gut that told him that there were more than just squirrels wandering around at this hour. He closed his eyes, willing his ears to extend farther to pick up the sound of an unwelcome visitor. As he heard something snap behind him, he raised his bat and whirled around. A Mossberg repelled his blow as Shane stood there, deflecting him.

He didn't speak, but pressed a finger to his lips and pointed with his shotgun further down the mountain where Jim saw a walker bumbling around with no motivation.

"Gimme a hand with it?" said Shane.

Jim confirmed and the two set off as quietly as they could to surprise the walker. They were less than five feet from it when it suddenly perked its head up and stared them down. Jim brought his bat around and smacked it against the walker's temple as Shane came in with his shotgun, hitting it repeatedly on the head. The third time Jim brought his bat down on its head it laid still and he wiped the blood off on the leaves behind him.

"It ain't your turn to be on a sweeping party, so what're you doing out here, Jim?" asked Shane as he straightened his cap.

Jim shrugged one shoulder.

"Didn't Ed tell you to come back once you started walking off?"

"Ed's not there," said Jim tonelessly.

Shane's brow furrowed. "What d'you mean Ed's not there? He didn't come out for his watch?"

Jim shook his head and Shane swore, kicking a tree stump in anger.

"That's twice now that he hasn't gotten that fat ass outta bed to do what he's supposed to. Well, that's gonna end right now. C'mon, Jim."

Sighing in a resigned sort of way, Jim trudged back up the mountain behind Shane, not looking forward to the confrontation about to happen. There were a few people moving around now, one of them being Dale who had taken over Ed's watch since the latter didn't seem inclined to do his damn duty. Merle Dixon was picking at the embers to his campfire, but his brother was nowhere to be found. The tent next to theirs was the Peltier's and though Carol was tending to a pot of coffee, Ed was not up yet. Shane went over to the opening and called in, "Ed, I need to talk to you out here for a minute, would you come on out?"

There came no reply from the inside.

"Ed? I really need to settle something here, come out, please," said Shane, trying very hard to not show his frustration.

After a moment Ed appeared, rubbing sleep from his eyes and sticking a cigarette in his mouth. Jim could tell that he knew exactly why he was being called out of his tent, but Ed still tried to pull off a look of confusion.

"What d'you want?" he asked Shane innocently.

"If I remember correctly, it was your turn for watch this morning, right after Glenn, but Jim tells me that you weren't there."

"Did he?" said Ed, shooting Jim a dirty look with the cigarette moving around in his mouth. "Well for all he knows, I couldda just finished my watch and went back to bed, y'ever stop to think about that?"

"No, see, Ed, if you had done your watch, you'd still be up there where Dale is right now. You'd still be on duty for another hour, but you aren't up there, so that tells me that you didn't do it all. That's twice now that you ain't been there and I'm gonna try'n be as calm about this as I can, but that's gotta stop. You've got as much responsibility as everyone else here so you need to step it up. It ain't gonna kill you to lose a few hours of sleep twice a week. I mean, it's not like you got anywhere you need to be or any reason to be well rested. So I'm gonna ask you to go and start your watch."

"Ain't my turn now," said Ed stubbornly.

"I'm saying it is, now please go do it."

Ed looked like he was going to back-hand Shane but instead he rounded on Jim, looking twice as ugly since he had just woken up. "You're gonna regret opening your mouth, smart ass," he threatened in a low voice.

"Ed…" said Shane in warning.

Giving Jim a smirk, Ed started to walk past him and then elbowed him hard in the gut. Normally Jim would have shaken this off, but if there was one person in camp who could be even more of an ass than Merle Dixon it was Ed and Jim wasn't going to stand by to be pushed around. He used his bat to poke Ed in the small of his back, twisting his fingers around the handle to prepare for Ed's retaliation. Ed spun around, enraged.

"Hey!" Shane shouted, coming between them. "Don't start something here that you're gonna regret, and I mean both of you."

Jim backed away easily enough, putting his bat into a resting position to show his surrender, but Ed shot up the middle finger and then pointed it at Jim. "This ain't over, you underfed piece of shit."

"Ed, go now," said Shane.

Jim pulled his shirt up slightly to look at the area where Ed had hit him. He didn't bruise easily; his callused skin had built up an immunity to hurt over the years, but for some reason (and he was guessing the fact that he _was_ underfed) there was a small elbow-shaped purple tinge coming in on his stomach. Shane shook his head and said in an undertone to him, "That probably wasn't the wisest decision on your part. I wouldn't go looking for trouble, least've all with him."

Shrugging indifferently, Jim just stood there, not really sure what to do next and not particularly caring either. Andrea and Amy appeared at his side, holding what looked like half the contents of Dale's pantry in their hands.

"You need to eat something," said Andrea a bit bossily. "I don't care what it is, but it has to be _something_ and you have a lot to choose from, so come on." She and Amy held out their stash to him and he picked out a granola bar grudgingly and irritably. As he stood there with the bar in his hands, the sisters gave him a simultaneous raise of their eyebrows and he rolled his eyes as he tore the granola bar open, stuffing the wrapper in his pocket. He bit down on half of it and returned the look as if to say, _I ate the damn thing, happy?_

Although not completely satisfied, Andrea accepted the fact that his response was as good as they were going to get and she and Amy set off to return Dale's food. Once he was certain that they were not going to look over their shoulder, he spat out the unchewed bar into his hand and folded it back into the wrapper, deciding that he'd eat it later if he had any incentive to eat.


	4. Chapter 4: Granola Bar

Now, Jim had eaten his fair share of strange things in his life growing up with his dad close to the Bayou, but squirrels was not one of them and he therefore couldn't think of a single thing to say when he saw Daryl stride into camp with no less than ten dead squirrels tied to a string slung over his shoulder. You could never be too careful when it came to squirrels—disease and whatnot. Only when Daryl told him that he'd catch a fly with his mouth hanging open did he realize how long he'd been staring at the dead rodents.

"What's the matter? Y'never seen a squirrel b'fore? Meat's a good source've protein," he told Jim as he set them down on a makeshift cutting board and began to skin them.

"Well, you can't really call what's on them _meat_," said Jacqui unhelpfully as she watched Daryl rip the tail from one unlucky woodland creature.

"They've got more meat on 'em that this stringy guy," said Daryl, jabbing his knife in Jim's direction.

Jim thought that "stringy" was taking things a little too far. He had plenty of meat on him as well as muscle, but since he spent most of his time wearing his garage one-piece no one could really tell. But hadn't he helped lift the Buick out of the mud when it got stuck halfway up the trail? He was one of three men to lift it, the other two being Shane and T-Dog. He had contributed one third of the man power, so no one could say that a _squirrel_ had more meat on it than him. As he continued watching Daryl skin the squirrels, he saw blood begin to run onto the cutting board in small red bubbling pools. He put the back of his hand to his mouth, suddenly feeling dizzy and nauseous.

"Jim, are you okay?" asked Amy as she tore her gaze away from Daryl's work.

"Yeah, I'm-," Jim took a small step backwards and nearly wiped out over one of the coolers they used for seats, but someone caught him and as he looked around to find out who, his heart sank. Andrea stood him up properly and plunged her hand into his pocket, pulling out his uneaten granola bar. Her pale blue eyes lit on an icy fire and seizing his wrist, she frog marched him around the backside of the Winnebago where she forced him against the wall and thrust the granola bar under his nose. He didn't know why he let her bully him this far, but perhaps his lack of energy had something to do with it.

"You eat this right now, damn it, or I will kick your ass," she said venomously as she brandished the wrapper in his face. He turned his head sideways so that she might not be able to reach it, but despite being two inches over six feet, he was still short enough for her to touch his mouth and she threatened him by pressing it against his lips. Grabbing his face with one hand, she hissed, "Don't make me shove it down your throat. I'm trying to _help_ you, you selfish bastard, now open your mouth!" When he still refused to open up she gave him a smack, not hard enough to leave a bruise, but it wasn't a love tap either. "Jim, what the hell is wrong with you? You're about to pass out because you haven't eaten in over twenty-four hours. If you keep this up you'll kill yourself!"

Taking her wrists and pushing her away, he murmured, "What if that's what I want?"

Andrea's eyes widened and she let the hand with the granola bar drop to her side. He thought he had her beaten, but then she came back with a soft reply. "You can't want that, not like this. If you want to die so bad then take a gun and put in it in your mouth, but you're hurting yourself this way. Jim, I can't offer you any sort of comfort if you don't let me in. I've tried being nice to you and you pretend I'm not here; I try being an ass and you don't show any expression at all. If you want it that bad, I'll give you a damn gun." She dug into the back of her shirt along her belt line and handed him her Ladysmith. "Go on, take it. No one's here to stop you right now and you can do it without thinking that we'll hate you for wanting a way out. Here…"

Jim stared down at the handgun for a long while, contemplating whether he should and also whether or not he wanted to. He could get out of this horrific nightmare right now and see his family. It would be painless, quick, and easy. He extended his hand until it was right above Andrea's and then closed her fingers around it. She smiled triumphantly.

"All you need to do is ask if you want it, but if you aren't going to use it, you have to take better care of yourself. I'm not asking much, Jim, I'm just asking you to _eat_. Humans do that, remember? Remember what it's like to _be_ a human?" She reached up and rested her hands on either side of his face. Again he was reminded forcibly of his wife and rather than give in to a hallucination that would only cause him pain, he closed his eyes, blocking her out.

"Let go, please…" he said weakly.

"Do you feel the warmth in my hands, Jim? Do you remember what it feels like to be touched by another person, to feel that they're still alive? I'm not going to hurt you."

How could he explain to her that her simplest movement, the very fact that she had her hands on his face was causing him so much pain? She and Tara were so alike in their mannerisms. He understood why she, of all people, was the one who he wanted to have nothing to do with because she alone was the image of the wife he had lost. She wouldn't understand if he were to ask her to never speak to him again, never look at him, but every time she did, what little pieces of his heart shattered inside of him. But she, like Tara, was stubborn, and she would never give up on him.

"Okay," he said at last, opening his eyes.

In those two syllables he gave her permission to extend her kindness, to look out for him, to keep him going until he decided that he was done. That didn't mean he was a changed man who had been struck by some epiphany, but it did mean that he would at least do his depraved body the favor of fueling it. Andrea watched him gulp down the granola bar with a bit of a grimace on his face and then she took him by the hand and led him around the RV where thankfully no one was watching. Letting go, she went to sit beside Amy who was helping Daryl clean the squirrels with a very disgusted look on her face.

Jim took over for Dale on watch, swinging one leg idly off the edge of the RV as the rifle rested nearby. He felt the granola bar trying to settle into his stomach and had to swallow his own vomit a few times as his insides tried to reject it, but he managed to keep it down. Perhaps it was just his imagination, or better yet, his dehydration, but he caught Andrea casting a fleeting glance at him more often than not—or maybe _he_ was the one who kept glancing at _her_. Either way they were meeting eyes once every ten minutes and every time he gave a barely visible inclination of his head to show her—to show her what? Appreciation, reassurance?

"Jim, you want some water?" asked Shane from below, holding up a canteen.

Well, he certainly didn't _want_ any, but he knew he _needed_ some and if he didn't take it he would probably have to go through another one of Andrea's talks which he certainly did not want a repeat of, so he held his arm out and Shane tossed the canteen up to him. He unscrewed the cap and took a swig, noticing that Merle had joined the party to oversee his little brother's handiwork and start adding the squirrels to the pot of whatever the hell they were making. Jim didn't care what Andrea said, he wasn't going to eat it. He'd stomach down ten granola bars in place of just a spoonful of that mystery meal. As he tipped the canteen to pour a bit of water down the back of his shirt, he saw Lori come running up from her tent, looking around worriedly. There was only one thing that could possibly make her face go that wild-looking…

"Has anyone seen Carl?"

"Kid was by the Jeep 'bout twenny minutes 'go," said Merle without looking up from the pot.

"I saw him there too, but now I can't find him," said Lori, running her fingers through her hair.

Shane took up his shotgun from inside the RV and started issuing orders. "Alright, Dale, get up there and start searching for 'im. Dog, you'n Glenn head off towards the east side, circle back, and rattle the can alarms if you find him. Daryl, take Merle and go straight down the mountain. Jim, come with me."

Jim lowered himself onto the ladder and jumped the last few steps, handing off the rifle to Dale and exchanging it for his favored bat. He saw Ed watching the activity going on around him, but put his grudge aside and said, "If he comes back, holler."

To his immense surprise, Ed jerked his head and drew on his cigarette. Following Shane, Jim headed off down the trail, craning his neck for any sight of the boy. It didn't make any sense to him that Carl would take off so far without telling someone. Rummaging in the cars while everyone else was still sleeping was one thing because he was only twenty feet away from the RV, but disappearing was completely out of character.

"Carl!" Shane hollered, quickening his pace with every minute that crept by. Jim started to feel panic in his bruised gut and was about to call for the boy himself when they spotted him, snuggled in close next to a tree. Cold fear seized Jim's lungs, making it hard to breathe when he saw that Carl's arm was covered in blood. Shane beat him by only a second or two as they broke through the foliage to reach the boy. Shane dropped to his knees beside Carl and held his arm up to search for any bite mark, but when he found none, he pried Carl for information.

"Carl, whose blood is this? What happened?"

Wincing, Carl said quite calmly, "I was carving a pike and resetting the alarms and I fell down the hill. I think I sprained my ankle, because when I tried to get up I couldn't stand for too long, so I just sat down and waited. Mom said that I shouldn't call for help and to wait for help to come to me, so that's what I did."

Jim had to look away because seeing Mark's shirt—now Carl's—so bloody made an evil shiver run down his spine.

"But where'd the blood come from?" Shane inquired. "It's fresh; I can smell it."

"Oh," said Carl, regarding his arm without interest, "well, I was trying to help Merle shave the squirrels, but he said I was only getting in the way once I got sprayed with blood when I cut it open the wrong way so he gave me a knife and told me to go stab something and stay the hell out of his way."

"Watch your mouth," said Shane reproachfully, though he ruined the effect by smiling in relief. "I swear, kid, you're something else."

Carl smiled back, but his expression immediately turned to one of horror as his eyes rested on something behind Jim. So preoccupied was he with the boy that Jim hadn't even heard the walker approaching. He could only revolve slowly on the spot and see it come straight at him.

"Jim, get down!" Shane yelled.

Carl's small hand took hold of Jim's pant leg and even though he wasn't strong, he had been eating to support his growing hormones whereas Jim had not and so he had enough strength to yank Jim back, allowing Shane to open fire on the walker. A few droplets of blood splattered against Jim's leg as he bent over with his hands on his knees to find his breath. He gave a nod of thanks to Carl who beamed at him, obviously pleased at his timeliness. Shane gave Jim his shotgun and picked Carl up in his arms, careful to not jolt his bad ankle.

"Well, I'd say that's enough excitement for one day, huh?"

Back at camp Lori was almost in tears when she saw blood covering her baby boy, but once Shane explained, all was forgiven and forgotten as Dale helped to set his ankle and Lori washed the blood off of Carl's arm. Daryl and Merle had returned and were back to cooking up their damn rodent stew or whatever. Andrea saw the blood on Jim's leg and opened her mouth to speak when he cut her off with a wave of his hand.

"S'not mine, don't worry."

She scratched at her head and gave a dry chuckle. "I guess you're just lucky."

Lucky wasn't the word Jim would use. Cursed, maybe, but he wasn't going to tell her that.


	5. Chapter 5: One in Three Volunteers

No matter how much Andrea insisted that he eat, he refused to have anything to do with Merle and Daryl's squirrel whatever so that meant he had to eat an entire can of Mandarin oranges under Andrea's penetrating stare. She made him finish up the syrup before she was satisfied and only then did she let him go off on his own. While everyone else may not have noticed, Jim couldn't help but do so as the last bit of light faded away and darkness set in. The volunteer group was still not back from the city and he didn't like their chances after dark, especially since only one of them knew the city, one knew how to fire a gun, and one knew absolutely nothing useful in a survival situation. Glenn, Amy, and Ed had gone right after Shane had brought Carl back and since Shane knew that Glenn was the best possible candidate to retrieve supplies, he had sent him off. Amy wanted to do her share and Ed had nearly leapt at the opportunity to go. Exactly why Ed was so keen to go when he only enjoyed sitting on his ass, smoking, and mooching off of other people's food was a real mystery to Jim.

He stood by idly watching the road for perhaps five minutes before a prickle on the back of his neck gave him the feeling that he wasn't standing alone. Carl came limping up to him using a sturdy branch Shane had found for him as he tried to take pressure off of his ankle.

"Are you worried?" he asked.

While worried was perhaps not the word Jim had in mind, he definitely was feeling uneasy about the volunteers' extended absence. Glenn had made the trip several times before alone and was back in no time and Jim doubted very much that Ed's fat ass could be slowing them down that much. He sat down right in the middle of the road, deciding that he'd best wait because what else was there to do? Carl took a seat beside him, chewing on a strip of what Jim recognized to be fried squirrel.

Seeing Jim looking at him, Carl offered up some of his meal. "You want some?"

Jim shook his head vigorously, trying to block his nasal passages off from the unappetizing smell. Carl didn't speak much but when he did, he asked questions or made comments that Jim thought were very mature for his age and much more mature than the stuff that came out of grown men's mouths. He sympathized with some things the boy pointed out and inwardly agreed with others, but he said nothing. He didn't want to encourage Carl's thoughts if they happened to be things that Lori didn't approve of and he especially didn't want Carl to get the idea that they were forming a bond. Jim refused to get too close with anyone—Andrea being an exception because she had simply refused to leave him alone and perhaps Dale who watched him like a hawk—and if Carl was under the impression that Jim was taking him under his wing, it would not end well. Jim would have to tell the kid to leave him alone and he didn't think he could stand to see any more sorrow in Carl's face. He was a young boy who had just lost his father and was now seeking a surrogate one in placement for the male figure he was missing. Jim didn't want to be that replacement, but if Carl simply enjoyed talking to him, that would be perfectly fine as long as Jim wasn't required to reply.

"You don't look so pale," said Carl presently. "I noticed that you looked like you had lost some weight and were dehydrated, but I think eating those oranges did you some good. Your face is healthier, fuller."

The blunt manner in which Carl had pointed out his appearance caught Jim a little off guard. If someone as young and oblivious as a child who had much more important or entertaining things to do besides watch a mechanic walk around had noticed that he was not up to his full health standards, that meant other people were noticing as well. But what did he care? He didn't care that they noticed, only that they probably thought they should do something about it once they _had_ noticed. The thought did nothing to improve his mood. He already had one person nosing into his private life (if you could call it that in a place like this where there was no privacy) and he didn't need fifteen more Andrea's telling him to eat more granola bars.

"They still aren't back?" said a voice from behind and above Jim.

Dale was standing there, rifle on his shoulder as he surveyed the road with concern. "That's not like Glenn at all; he should have gotten them back by now."

"Maybe their car got a flat tire," Carl suggested.

"Maybe you're right," said Dale, though Jim could tell he was only agreeing so as not to worry Carl and sure enough, he added, "Why don't you go on back to your mom, son? She might still have some squirrel left if you're hungry." Obviously Carl was, for he took Dale's hand as an aid to stand up and limped off.

"Flat tire my ass," said Dale, shaking his head.

"Probably Ed," said Jim though he didn't elaborate.

"When Ed's the superior force I don't think he'd mess with their chances," said Dale. "Here in camp he acts like an ass and never lifts a finger to help with anything that he doesn't need to, but if he went out there, he'll be contributing. He's stronger and bigger than both Glenn and Amy and he knows how to use a gun. No, I think they got held up by something; otherwise they'd be back by now. Something's gone wrong; I'm sure of it."

Jim sensed the older man's eyes on him but didn't meet his gaze. Dale took a knee beside him, moving rather slowly due to the ache in his limbs form arthritis or whatnot. He nudged Jim's leg with his finger.

"You doing okay? You look better."

There it was again; mention of his appearance. It didn't bother him as much as if Jacqui or perhaps Carol were to say something because Dale was ever watchful of him and could practically predict his moods, but it still made him feel a bit annoyed.

"Great," he said unconvincingly, hoping his answer would suffice. The people around him could change his looks all they wanted by making him eat and sleep, but they weren't going to get rid of that hollow, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach, the ever present weight in his mind, or the heavy, broken ache of his heart.

Not for nothing, Jim had spent thirty-two of his thirty-eight years in a garage learning car parts, listening, watching, and remembering and so he heard the sound of a car engine before Dale did. He waited a moment, listening to the hum and then concluded that it was the Buick, Ed's car. He stood up, brushing the backside of his suit off.

"What is it?" asked Dale, coming to his feet much slower.

"Buick, comin' this way," said Jim, "listen."

Dale cupped his hand around his ear and after a moment, nodded. "Yeah, I hear it. Shane, Shane get over here, I think they're coming back!"

Not just Shane, but half the camp gathered behind Jim as they waited for the vehicle to appear and when it did, Jim could instantly tell that something was seriously wrong. He saw one pale outline in the driver's seat and that was all. As the car came to a crunching stop on the gravel, he saw Amy tumble out and then stand up, holding out her arms for someone, anyone.

There was blood all over them.

Andrea reached Amy first who began to sob into her sister's shoulder. Dale took her face in his hands and asked urgently, "What happened?" As Amy tried to choke back a sob, Dale gave her head a very slight shake and repeated with emphasis, "_What—happened?_"

"Walkers," gasped Amy, "inside the shop…too many of them…told me to run."

"Who did? What happened to Glenn and Ed?"

"Glenn…got hurt. I dragged him back—in a closet…tried to stop the bleeding. Ed told me to run back—get help. They're still there."

"Where?" Dale demanded. "Where did you leave them?"

"AutoZone."

Shane made a frustrated gesture and walked around in a circle for no reason at all, tugging at the tips of his hair. "Are you sure, Amy? You _sure_ that that's where they are?"

"Yes," Amy choked.

"Right," said Shane, looking somewhere between pissed off and worried sick. "We're gonna go back and get 'em."

"But you said that if anyone gets trapped like that there's no point in trying a rescue," said Lori.

"I know what I said, but that's Glenn in there and he's one of the most valuable resources we've got, so we gotta go back."

"And Ed Peltier?" asked Daryl, checking to make sure that Carol and her daughter were not nearby.

"I don't give a shit 'bout Ed," said Shane darkly. "It's Glenn we gotta go back for, not that speck of human trash."

"What's this 'we'?" asked Dale. "How many men are you planning on taking with you?"

"Who says it's just men?" Andrea challenged, patting Amy's back comfortingly. "I can fire a gun _and_ hit the target which is probably more than any other woman here and also a few men can say."

"Then I can use you," said Shane heavily. "Anyone else know how to use artillery besides the Dixons?"

Jim kept silent. He knew how; he'd practiced with his dad many times, never quite perfected the technique, but learned the basics and a few skills as well. But he didn't feel that it was his place to volunteer, especially since he was weak and for the first time he regretted it. As long as he was only hurting himself, he didn't mind depraving his body what it needed to survive, but if Glenn was out there and in need of help, Jim couldn't be selfish. Other lives were at stake and though Jim, like Shane, didn't care for Ed, he felt that no one deserved the fate of being bitten by a walker.

He raised a hand with two fingers held up, albeit reluctantly, and waited for Shane to recognize him. The first one to notice him was Merle who couldn't hold back a laugh.

"_You_? Where'd you learn to shoot?"

"That don't matter," said Shane. "Jim, I ain't gonna force you, but if you think you can manage, I'd be grateful to have you along." Jim raised his head and Shane took that for a yes, dashing off to retrieve their necessary supplies.

"Now just why is it that the Dixons aren't going?" asked Lori when he returned.

"'Cuz I need them to stay here and watch the camp. You'll need all the man power you can get and they know their stuff if anything happens. With a walker already getting into camp, I'm not leaving anything up to chance. But that don't mean I'm leaving you in charge," he added to the Dixons and his tone couldn't have been more serious. "Dale's in charge, hear me?"

Merle didn't look too happy about that, but Daryl appeared indifferent. Jim supposed that as long as he had access to firepower, he was happy.

Andrea took an axe from Shane and Jim accepted a pistol, though declined the use of a crowbar. He would use his bat and nothing else for beating walkers.

"You three be careful and don't take any unnecessary risks," Dale cautioned though Jim couldn't help but notice how he seemed to be speaking mainly to Andrea who in turn looked to Jim as if to stress his point.

"No heroics and nothing stupid," she said in an undertone as she and Jim took the back and passenger seat respectively. Shane backed the Buick out and they set off down the trail, heading for people they were uncertain were alive, but also driving towards an area that they knew was bountiful in walkers.


	6. Chapter 6: Atlanta AutoZone

Jim had not ridden in a vehicle since Dale parked his RV at the campsite and so the ride back down the trail was incredibly bumpy and unpleasant. By the time they reached the main road he was feeling the need to roll the window down and hurl out of it and as he frantically pumped the crank to lower it, a nice cool breeze hit his face, but that didn't improve his condition and he vomited. There wasn't much that came out since he didn't have much in him to begin with, but it still tasted nasty and he rested his cheek against the door for a moment. Shane, who had his eyes intently on the road, had noticed nothing, but Andrea reached up from behind and put her hand on his forehead.

"Are you going to be able to keep going?" she asked him serenely.

"Mmm…" he responded unenthusiastically.

"We can leave you in the car when we go in to get them," she offered.

Was she insane? Leave him in the _car_? This wasn't a trip to the grocery store where a mother left the toddlers in the back seat as she ran in to get milk and fruit; this was a rescue mission to a car part store inhabited by walkers and if he didn't go in to help, Shane and Andrea might not come out. No, no way in hell was he staying in the car.

"'M'goin' in," he told her without lifting his head.

"Look sharp, people, we're coming up on the city," said Shane nervously, "and before we go in, I gotta say something to the two of you. I don't know how Glenn could be bleeding that much and still be alive, but I don't think he just _got hurt_ like Amy said. I think a walker bit him and if it did, we're gonna have to put him down 'cuz we can't have him reanimating in the car on the way back. Realistically, he probably already came back as a walker or else he's gonna real soon and if Ed didn't have enough sense to kill him, we might be looking at two corpses that we have to bring back."

"If you're so sure that they were bitten, why'd you volunteer to go get them?" asked Andrea furiously.

"'Cuz I gotta try'n keep some hope in the people at camp and I'm trying really hard to keep some of that for myself. I wanna believe that they're still alive and uninfected, but I'm prepared for the worst which means that you two should be as well."

"I think Amy would have said something if she thought Glenn had been bitten," said Andrea.

"Andrea, did you _see_ your sister? It's a miracle that she got back to camp in the state she was in. No, I think that she got all the information she thought was important; she said that Glenn and Ed were trapped, that Glenn was hurt, and that they were hiding in a closet. Maybe she didn't have time to see how Glenn had gotten cut up, but it doesn't matter. I need you to focus and remember that we can't leave anything to chance."

In the passenger side mirror Jim saw Andrea frown and cross her arms which told him that while she was prepared to do what she had to, she was going to hate Shane for it.

As they entered Atlanta Shane switched the headlights off and slowed down to ten miles an hour. Since neither he nor Andrea had been in Atlanta before, Jim had to point the way which he did only after he rolled up the window. When they came upon the street, they could tell by the moonlight that the place was swamped. There were walkers climbing over the broken glass frames and even more still trying to move into the shop.

"Shit," Andrea cursed. "How the hell are we supposed to get inside?"

"Andrea, climb up here and take the wheel," Shane instructed. "Jim'n me are gonna get out here and wait. You drive up there, turn the headlights on, and honk a few times 'til you get their attention, then back up, draw 'em away. Just keep 'em distracted while we go in and when we're ready, we'll signal you."

"Oh, so you dragged me all the way out here not because I know how to shoot a pistol but because you want to use me as bait?"

"This ain't a game," said Shane angrily. "If you're not gonna help then why the hell'd you come along?"

"Alright, fine, fine, here I come so move over." She climbed out of her seat and into Shane's as he opened the door and slid out with his weapons and a flashlight in hand. Jim slipped free of his own seat and very quietly shut the door. He and Shane snuck over to the neighboring building which was an eyeglass shop. They saw Andrea switch the headlights on, rev the engine, and blare the horn several times. At intervals the walkers turned on her and made towards the Buick. Jim tried to count the number of heads he saw but it was impossible since they all looked the same—dead.

Shane, however, seemed to know when it was clear enough and tapped Jim's shoulder. "C'mon, let's go." They stole forward, hugging the wall, and within seconds found themselves standing on shattered glass. They stepped over the frame and proceeded with their weapons raised, crouching slightly to duck between the aisles without being seen. Various contents were knocked from the shelves which they had to weave around to avoid making any noise. At the back of the store they found a closet that looked weak with fingernail marks on it and as they made towards it, they heard ragged breathing from the other side. Shane's face fell and he shook his head, but put his hand on the knob anyway. "When I open, you get ready to shoot," he told Jim.

He knocked and said quietly, "Ed, Glenn, you in there? It's Shane, open up."

They heard a metallic click and on the count of three Shane yanked the door open, shining his flashlight as Jim raised his pistol. They saw cleaner fluid, rags, spare parts, and other miscellaneous junk, but in the middle of it sat Ed with dark blood on his hands and a screwdriver in one of them that was stained with the same color. At his feet lay Glenn with a bullet-sized hole in his temple where Ed had apparently driven the screwdriver through it once the younger man had reanimated due to the enormous teeth marks on his forearm. Ed, however, looked unharmed for the most part besides visibly shaken. He dropped the screwdriver and stumbled out of the closet, pinching his nose.

"Smells like dog shit in there," he complained and Jim had a sudden urge to smack him in the gut with his bat, but the sight of Shane closing Glenn's eyelids drove the thought out of his mind.

"We can't take the body," said Shane painfully. "There's walkers all over the place out there and we'd only get caught." He stepped back and shut the door, locking it from the inside. His head was bowed in shame and failure.

"Are we going or what?" Ed asked, motioning at the door.

Shane locked eyes with him and Jim saw something different, something inhumane in the depths of his irises, though he couldn't quite pinpoint the source. "Lemme make something clear to you, Ed, we didn't come back for you; we came back for Glenn, so you'll show him some damned respect and honor him when and if we get back to camp because he didn't have to bring you with him. If I know Glenn, he was probably trying to save your pathetic and worthless ass when he got bitten. He shouldn't have let you come because you're most likely the one that screwed the whole thing up, so you can put a cork in it and suck it up."

It was hard to read Ed's expression, but Jim thought that for perhaps a fleeting moment he had shown genuine remorse. However, the grief didn't last long as he asked, "What d'you mean _if_ we get back to camp?"

"We gotta leave," said Jim, catching on to what Shane meant, "right now."

The three of them bolted for the glassless windows and Shane sacrificed one bullet from his revolver, firing it into the air to bring Andrea around. He wouldn't let Ed have a gun, but he tossed him a broomstick from the floor behind them as they waited for Andrea none too patiently since the walkers began to appear, drawn in by the sound of the bullet going off. Cold chills shivered down Jim's spine and he arched his back slightly to shake them off. That's all he needed right now. Despite the coolness of the night and the added dead, cold atmosphere brought on by the walkers, Jim still felt burning hot as his adrenaline began to flow.

"C'mon, c'mon, where the hell are you, Andrea?" said Shane under his breath.

"Walkers on the left," said Ed, giving Shane a reproachful look for arming him with a broomstick.

"Here she comes," said Jim, pointing at two pinpricks growing larger by the second as Andrea came towards them at full speed, knocking walkers out of her way like bowling pins. When she was about half a block away they started to run out to meet her and as the vehicle hit the brakes, Shane flew forward into the back seat with Ed right beside him. Jim backed up, letting the bat out to its full length to ward off any walkers that were approaching, but Andrea started to scream at him and he remembered her warning of not being heroic _or_ stupid, which was exactly what he was doing standing out in the middle of a walker-infested street at night in the heart of Atlanta. Things didn't get much stupider than that.

He turned back towards the Buick and found Ed's hand in his face, extended to help him climb up. He took the beefy fingers in his hand and Ed pulled him up, hauling him almost bodily up into the passenger seat which gave Andrea the incentive to shoot off down the way that they originally had come. She counted heads in the rear view mirror and though she kept her eyes on the road, she appealed to Jim for answers.

"Glenn?"

"I tolja," said Shane from behind her, sinking low in his seat almost as if he wished to not be seen, "Amy couldn't tell us what the source of the blood was, which happened to be an infected bite mark on Glenn's arm. He came back in the closet, attacked Ed and Ed put him down. Son of a bitch!" He kicked Andrea's seat, infuriated.

"Did he say anything?" Andrea asked Ed.

"Nothing distinguishable," said Ed, staring out the window. "He went off the deep end 'bout twenty minutes before y'all showed up."

"We could have gotten there in time," said Andrea wistfully.

"No, we couldn't have," Shane disagreed. "As soon as we got answers outta Amy we left and we didn't waste any time getting there either, so there's no way we couldda made it. Don't you beat y'self up for this one, Andrea, there's nothin' that you couldda done."

"I could have gone with them, helped them." There was a bit of emotion stuck in Andrea's throat, waiting to come out with her tears.

"Yeah, then your ass would prob'ly be laying in that closet too," Ed scoffed, but Jim turned around in his seat, pointing one long finger at him and said, "Shut—up."

Just then the Buick lurched forward and Jim threw out his arms to keep his head from smashing into the glove compartment. By the jerk of the car he could tell that they had popped a tire and he climbed out of his seat to go check which one. A quick inspection told him that the rear left tire had deflated and after searching for the spare but coming up empty, he stomped around to the passenger side to where Ed had lit himself a cigarette and was calmly smoking it.

"No spare? Are you stupid?" he spat.

Ed gave him one of his deluxe sneers. "Flat tire, mechanic man? Well, what's that mean to us?"

"It means you're going to get out and push."


	7. Chapter 7: The Winding Road

**Chapter Seven: The Winding Road**

After thirty minutes of getting nowhere, Shane made the executive decision to hike back to camp on foot, something Ed was highly against, but Shane told him to shove it up his ass. Jim didn't take too kindly to the idea either, especially since he had spent all of his energy on the trip to AutoZone. He had puked up all of his food and now had absolutely nothing in him to fuel his tank. Sensing his worry, Andrea took hold of his arm and then asked Shane if there was any food at all in the Buick. Jim was in luck because after a few minutes of searching around everywhere with the flashlight held in his mouth, Shane surfaced with a package of stale peanuts, but at this point Jim knew he needed it because the thought of being left alone in the darkness to be devoured by walkers was highly unappealing to him. He stomached the peanuts with a small bit of difficulty and then crumpling the cellophane, stuffed it into his pocket.

"We're gonna be moving fast so try'n keep up," said Shane. "We'll come back for the car tomorrow, but we're still a ways out from the camp, so it's gonna be rough goin'. If you're having trouble keeping up then speak up otherwise you might get left behind and we don't want that, _do we, Ed_?" he added with a bit of venom in his voice. "So we're gonna look out for each other and keep our eyes on the road for walkers. Everyone understand?"

Jim gave him a bit of a scowl. If he expected Ed to watch out for everyone else's ass then there was something seriously wrong with him. Having to rely on Ed for back up was about as reassuring as lying down next to a bitten victim and hoping that they wouldn't reanimate. In other words, Jim thought the idea was stupid.

"Let me know if you need help; I'll be right in front of you," said Andrea and then dropping her voice so that only he could hear she added, "don't you leave me hanging out there or I will hunt you down and force-feed you squirrel before I kill you."

Jim thought that that was a very adamant threat. He fell into step behind Andrea and beside Ed as they started jogging up the road which was uphill and a pain in the ass to boot. Trying not to think of the rockier, rougher road to the camp which also just _happened_ to be uphill, Jim concentrated on the back of Andrea's blonde hair in the silvery light cast out by the nearly full moon. Her ponytail swung back and forth with her movements in a hypnotic sort of way so that Jim hardly noticed where they were going or indeed how fast they were getting there. They were about half a mile onto the mountain trail by the time he became aware of the fact and by then he had been so used to the sloping road that it didn't seem to matter.

Suddenly Shane held out his arm to stop them and made ducking motions. As one they all went to their knees, eyes darting around to try and detect movement around them, but the three of them could not see what Shane could. Making almost no noise at all Shane laid down flat on his stomach and began to army crawl sideways with his shotgun cradled in his arms. Shrugging briefly at Andrea, Jim followed suit as he kept his bat in the same position. He moved with deliberate slowness so as not to disturb any loose rocks or crack twigs. When he turned back over his shoulder to see if Andrea and Ed were following, he bumped his head against Shane's back and then moved over so that they were almost touching. Andrea squeezed herself in beside Jim and then Ed came in on her left.

Then they saw them.

There were five walkers all staggering across the path directly where the group would have ended up if Shane hadn't stopped them. They didn't move fast, pressing forward with all the haste of a turtle out of water. They passed within a few feet of where the four of them lay and as one gave a startling groan, Andrea opened her mouth to gasp. Jim foresaw something of this nature happening and had prepared himself by placing his hand very close to her face. Now he slapped it over her lips. Luckily another walker moaned at the same time that the skin on Jim's palm made the sound of smacking against the skin of another and their presence went unnoticed.

Once the dead had moved on Jim slowly uncovered her mouth and Shane whispered, "Guess camp's not as safe as it used to be. More'n more walkers roaming around the whole damn place."

"Do you think any more got into camp?" asked Andrea anxiously, standing up.

"No way of telling, c'mon, we're running from here."

Running was the one word Jim did _not_ want to hear but the one he knew would motivate Ed. Even though he was the apocalyptic world's biggest asshole, Ed cared about his wife and daughter to some degree and so the threat on his family would cause him to move as quickly he possibly could to ensure that they were still alive. Jim started to sweat again against the breeze and the sour stench of body odor wafting up through his nostrils. It seemed like that was all he did anymore and he didn't suppose that the stains would ever come out of his shirts. They hit a deep slope in the road that eventually gave way to a drop off and the gravel became slippery. Ed gained too much momentum and his bulk dragged him forward. Jim hooked his fingers around Ed's belt loops, but the latter dragged him along and as Jim was bracing for the fall and then impact Shane grabbed Jim by the collar. The three skidded to a stop just shy of the edge and Ed scrambled backwards.

"Watch your step, boys," said Shane. "Keep moving."

It seemed to Jim that they weren't getting any closer to the camp, but he didn't even know the way, so he had no way of estimating. When the road began to wind back and forth, however, he knew that they were coming up on the RV and sure enough, they broke out into the open where their first sight was that of Dale standing atop his Winnebago with his rifle pointed directly at them.

"Don't shoot, Dale, it's us!" Shane called.

"I'll be damned, they actually made it," said Daryl, looking on in disbelief as the group came to an exhausted stop. Jim bent over with his hands on his knees and spat out a bit of vomity saliva from between his teeth while Andrea dropped to her knees, but Ed kept going right up to his tent where his wife and daughter met him with tearful embraces. Jim didn't understand it; he didn't think _anyone _should be that happy to see Ed. Dale had climbed down and offered up a canteen to Shane and Andrea while Daryl tossed Jim one, shaking his head. "I don't believe it; we thought y'all weren't comin' back. You owe me, Merle, they're back!"

"You made a bet that we wouldn't come back?" asked Shane with a deep frown on his face.

"Naw, Merle did," said Daryl earnestly. "I knew you were gonna be fine."

"You just said you didn't believe it," Andrea pointed out, but Daryl went to collect his winnings from his brother.

By now Lori, Amy, and Carl joined them and there was another round of sloppy, emotional hugs for Shane and Andrea. However, Jim found himself pulled in close by Amy who thanked him for watching out for Andrea and then Dale patted him on the back to commend him for a job well done. Shane retold the story of Glenn to the others and Amy burst into open tears as Dale took off his hat.

"How could that—that _asshole_ survive instead of Glenn?" asked Lori in an enraged whisper. "Ed didn't do anything for them by going; he as good as killed that boy."

"Glenn always knew the risk, Lori," said Shane. "He contributed to us all by going into the city and his luck just ran out, that's all. Hopefully we'll be able to make it back to that AutoZone and recover his body soon; I locked the door so that the walkers couldn't get to him."

"We'd go back to just get his body?" asked Dale. "That seems like we're risking an awful lot to get a body to bury."

"You'd prefer to let him rot in a closet?" asked Amy as Andrea hugged her close.

"I'd prefer to not lose anyone else just for that. We're all grieving here, but we'll be burying more bodies if we go back. It's not sensible or sentimental; it's stupid."

"But it's Glenn…"

"Glenn was no more of a human than any of us than perhaps Ed and maybe Merle and it makes absolutely no sense to go find his body. We can honor him, but not this way," said Dale and there was a sense of insistency now as more people joined them and began to take Lori and Amy's side.

"Well, if Shane wants to go back for his body he can go and you have no say to stop him," said Lori, but Shane was looking at her uncomfortably.

"I didn't mean right _now_, Lori, we just got back. And if that closet has to be his grave then so be it, I mean, I don't think it's such a good idea to go all the way out there. Jim, Andrea, and I were lucky that once we got Ed the only thing that happened to us was a flat tire on the Buick when it couldda been a lot worse."

"Well, I'm not going back and I know Ed isn't, so who does that leave to go with you, Shane?" asked Andrea. "You can't go alone and no one's volunteering."

"Now is not the time to discuss it," said Dale, face relaxing and silently thanking Andrea for speaking up. He turned to Jim and asked, "You okay, son?" Jim nodded, made it two feet and swayed before he stumbled into Dale, nearly knocking the older man over.

"He needs some food," said Andrea, escorting Jim down into a chair as he held his head and clamped his fingers over his temples. Dale went scrounging around in his pantry for something that Jim could manage to swallow while Andrea sponged his forehead with a damp cloth to clear up the sweat and cool him down a bit. "You did great out there," she complimented.

"I didn't do nothin'," he said, though he wasn't trying to speak modestly. He just didn't think that he did anything worthy of praise.

"You kept up and more importantly, you didn't try to kill yourself," Andrea continued as Dale handed her a can of peas and carrots which had already been opened with a fork stuck in it. Jim tried to take the can, but he could hardly lift his arm and so all he could do was look helplessly at it. He supposed that he really did have "pathetic" written all over his face because Andrea stabbed a few vegetables on the fork and prompted, "Open up."

Oh, no. No, no, this woman was _not _going to feed him. He seized the can from her so viciously that some of the contents spilt out. She laughed and without warning, bent over to kiss him right above the eyebrow. He froze with the fork halfway into his mouth so that some of the water to preserve the vegetables dripped steadily into his lap. No memories of Tara came flooding back into him, but a rather a new feeling stirred deep down in his gut, one that made his neck prickle. He couldn't identify the meaning of the emotion, but he knew that it confused him and that Andrea was making life a whole lot more difficult to comprehend.


	8. Chapter 8: Feeling Better for the Worse

For the first time since losing his family, Jim actually dreamt rather than slept through nightmares. He saw to no surprise that Andrea was advancing towards him through a golden patch of light and for some reason she didn't seem quite—_human_. She wasn't a walker, but she exhibited a grander yet gentler sense of a kind-hearted being. As she stood within two feet of him she extended her hand as if to lay it above his heart but instead her fingers sank right through his skin and he could feel their warmth actually _touching_ his heart, the very organ that pumped blood through his system. The act scared him, however, and he had half a mind to ask her to draw back, but the reassuring smile she gave him left the words unspoken on his lips.

"Don't forget to use this," she said as she withdrew her hand and pointed to spot it had just left. In seconds she dissolved into a shining substance that left the air feeling empty and cold.

Then the dream shifted.

Andrea had her arms around Carl, running with him down the trail with walkers in hot pursuit. Her image flickered so that it was hard to focus on her and then she morphed into Tara who was bearing Mark with the same walkers chasing them. His family stayed for perhaps ten seconds and then they melted back into Andrea and Carl. The switch made Jim's eyes water and he had to look away for just one moment, but in that moment, he heard the screaming, the agony, all over again, only this time in addition to his family's cries, he heard three more, though he couldn't distinguish gender.

He started to run but went nowhere as the horrifying sight of walkers closing in on his loved ones became just a faint image at the end of a tunnel vision view. His bat was in hand and he swung with it at nothing, hoping to cut through the black darkness to no avail. The claustrophobic nothingness pressed in on him, suffocating him on his own fears and anxieties. He threw his arms up over his face, waiting for the worst to come and then he fell…

He hit his cheek on the bedside table's corner and then flumped down on the floor between the two beds. Above him he heard Dale sit up in alarm.

"Jim, what the hell happened to you?"

"Don't remember," Jim groaned, touching two fingers to his face where they came away spotted with blood. Deciding that now was as good of a time as any to start the day, he stood up and realizing that he had no clean clothes, put his cleanest pair back on as he checked the sun's position outside. In point of fact the sun wasn't even up yet, but that had never mattered before and it certainly didn't matter now. He felt cheated that he had actually been having a decent dream only to have it interrupted by the overpowering nightmare which had been one of his worst yet. As he stretched his arms over his head, he suddenly heard a gargle in his stomach and stood there looking like a complete idiot halfway through a stretch as he contemplated whether or not he should go fumbling around in the pantry for food because he actually felt _hungry_.

Now when was the last time he had felt _that_ sensation? Too long ago to recall, that was for sure. But now as he listened to the sounds of protest coming from his stomach he remembered what it felt like to be properly hungry. He had been so caught up in his own self-loathing and despair that he had neglected to care for his body, ignoring the signs that he was beginning to decay, but now he felt like he was working properly and wanted to give himself something to enjoy. His life had been one endless nightmare around the clock and the almost _happy_ feeling enveloping him right now told him that could spare a little something for himself besides pain. Since being diagnosed with depression four years ago he had had little to distract himself from his misery and the apocalypse had only heightened these feelings but somehow he was now feeling younger as if the four years of hurt and blatant unresponsiveness had not existed. Disregarding his nightmare, he felt refreshed, almost new as his spirits rose to a peak that they had not been at for an extremely long time. Not much could spoil this morning.

Except…

"Amy?"

Jim spotted Andrea coming towards him, calling out her sister's name, though not looking quite as panicked as she was likely to be in a few moments when Jim told her that he hadn't seen Amy on this side of camp. She read the expression on his face and swore so loudly that Jim made a shushing noise, glancing at the window through which Dale was still sleeping.

"I can't find her," said Andrea, glowering. "I will kill her when I do, you can believe me. Where would she have gone? Where _could_ she go?"

"To get Glenn," Jim proposed halfheartedly, though only afterwards did he realize that that was a very plausible proposition and together he and Andrea took a quick count of the vehicles parked to the left of the Winnebago. They had had five to start with before the Buick broke down which meant they should have had four, but there were _three_.

Jim felt the happiness leaking out of him as if someone had popped a hole in him and now he felt it seeping out, decompressing until he was just back to his normal indifferent and depressed self except now he had added scared shitless to his list. Amy had gone back for Glenn's body and if Andrea didn't kill her first, he was certainly going to take a whack at it for her stupidity.

Andrea whooshed past him and he only just caught her by the wrist to stop her.

"Wait," he told her.

"_Wait_?" she repeated shrilly. "For what? For Shane to tell me that Amy's as good as gone and that I'd only be killing myself by going after her? For Ed Peltier to volunteer to go after her with me? No one's going to go get her or offer to because she chose to leave; she didn't accidentally get stuck out there. She isn't worth a damn to anyone in this camp enough for them to want to go get her so that means that I have to. Now let go of me."

"Dale'll go," said Jim. "I'll go, just wait."

Andrea blinked. "Y-you'll go? But she's not your family."

Jim shrugged. "She's yours, so she's mine." He hadn't meant for the words to come out in the way that they had, but he had to accept them for how they sounded because he couldn't take them back. He waited for Andrea to say something, to react, but instead and to his horror she burst into tears and flung her arms around his neck, hugging him fiercely. Stiffening out, Jim patted her head a few times and waited for her to let go. When she finally did he told her to wait while he woke Dale up, but by the time the three of them were ready to go, Shane and the Dixons were standing outside, watching them curiously.

"Now just where are y'all off to this early?" asked Shane

"Amy's gone," said Dale. "She went back for Glenn and she took the Pontiac."

Shane paused, perhaps waiting for one of them to yell "Kidding!" but when no one did he threw his hands up and cursed, "Son of a bitch! You people—you—aargh!"

"Didn't no one see her leave or try'n stop her?" asked Merle, looking up at the guard seat, but when he and the others saw its vacancy they consulted the watch duty schedule. Ed had been assigned the shift after Daryl.

"Oh, hell, no. No, that's it, that is _enough_," said Shane dangerously. "I'mma kill him! _Ed! Ed, you bastard, get your ass out here!_"

The camp came alive with activity from Shane's shouts and Ed poked his head out of his tent. When he saw Shane marching towards him his face turned pale and he swore, trying to back away, but he got caught in the flap and Shane seized him by his pajama shirt, dragging him out bodily and throwing him to the ground where he struck him twice.

"Amy's gone, you asshole! She left on _your_ watch and now she's gone so you're gonna get dressed and help go get her or I'll carve your liver open with a potato peeler right here'n now!"

"I ain't going nowhere. I just got back and I ain't riskin' my ass to go out and find some whiny little bitch who wanted a body to bury."

"Yes, you are," Shane spat. "She risked her life to come back and tell us where you were, otherwise you wouldda been left in that storage closet until your body started to eat its own fat and muscle, so you'd better get up now or I won't hesitate to drag you behind the Ram Wagon all the way back to AutoZone!"

"No, I don't want him going if he's only going to bitch and whine about it," said Andrea.

"He's going!" yelled Shane. "Now get up!" He kicked out at Ed's ribs and the huskier man staggered to his feet, looking defeated.

"Alright, alright, I'm going!"

They had to wait but two minutes for him to be ready and then Jim, Andrea, Dale, Shane, and Ed piled into the Ram Wagon with Dale at the wheel and Shane in the passenger seat. Instructions had been left that Lori and Daryl were to share responsibilities and that Merle would be the backup. Jim didn't like taking so much of their manpower out of camp, but if they wanted to get to Amy in time and also have the ability to clear the way for her as quickly as possible then they were going to need everyone who could be spared. Andrea was wringing her hands in her seat, resting her forehead against the window as if the scenery outside couldn't pass by soon enough. Her feet drummed restlessly on the floor and Jim could see that Ed in the seat in front of them was about to say something and so he kicked the seat, shooting Ed a look of warning that he had better keep his mouth shut. They hit a large bump and Andrea's hand fond Jim's, grasping it tightly for comfort. He didn't pull away but he didn't squeeze back or give her any sort of confirmation, though she didn't seem to mind.

"It's one thing if she got there, but she can't haul that Asian kid outta the closet and back to the Pontiac," said Ed pessimistically. "Plus, she's gotta break the door down and she didn't bring nothing with her to defend herself. What a stupid-,"

Jim jabbed his fist forward and struck Ed across the back of the head so that it jerked forward and hit the seat in front of him. When Ed turned around, Jim saw blood running down from both nostrils and was surprised to see that he had actually broken the bigger man's nose. Ed looked murderous but Jim calmly rested his hand on his bat and so there was nothing his opponent could do but continue to sit there and look ugly.

"We're not going in all stealth like this time," said Shane as they took to the main road. "Dale's gonna wait in the car and then we haul ass in there, grab her, and get the hell out. No lollygaggin', no wasting time y'all, hear me? We're not there for Glenn's body or supplies or to take out our anger on walkers. Whoever sees Amy first, grab her and make a run for it. Ed's gonna help me guard our backs while Andrea and Jim run in first. Is everyone clear on the plan?"

Everyone knew that Shane was only speaking to Ed, but since the latter was too preoccupied with stopping his nose bleed, he didn't answer. Out the window they saw downtown Atlanta rising up in an early morning haze. Even after a month of no operating vehicles, machines, or really anything that emitted pollution, there was still a good amount of it in the air.

"She'd better be alright," said Andrea breathlessly.

Jim didn't know how to respond to tell her that he wished the same thing, but he tightened his fingers around hers very slightly so that he could convey the message and as she felt his grip, she squeezed even tighter.


	9. Chapter 9: Shame of the Living

Jim had to keep a firm hold on Andrea's shoulders when they neared AutoZone, for she kept trying to climb over him to be the first one out the door and on her third attempt she accidentally kicked Ed in his already swollen nose. While she was muttering a quick apology Jim pulled her back so that she was sitting on his knee, something he figured was uncomfortable enough to keep her still for a few more moments. Then, when he felt that she was about to finally calm down, she pointed and cried out, "There's the Pontiac!"

"Will you shut up?" Ed hissed. "Y'wanna bring every walker in town on us?"

"Everyone get out now, right now!" said Shane without troubling to keep his voice down. Ed practically flew out of his seat to get away from Andrea who scrambled off of Jim and started running towards the storefront before Jim was halfway out of the Wagon. He took off after her and Shane made sure to get Ed moving before he followed. As Andrea made to climb through the door frame she paused with her leg halfway in the air for there were at least—at _least_ fifty walkers crammed inside the car store.

There had to be walkers. No, there just _had_ to be walkers, didn't there? It couldn't be easy for once, could it? No, everything had to be completely fucked up every single time Jim tried to do something right. Now Andrea's sister was either dead, dying, or hiding, but they'd never know if they didn't get the walkers out of the damn store. So Jim shoved Andrea aside and instructed her to seek cover as he beat his bat against a broken drain pipe to gain the walkers' attention. When he saw them coming his way he took off running, hearing Shane call him back.

"No, Jim, you're gonna get yourself killed y'dumbass!"

Andrea would never forgive him if he did, though perhaps if it was an act of heroics to try and help save her sister, she would eventually absolve him of his sin. He certainly wasn't _trying_ to get himself killed at the moment and didn't want to be killed either, but he had no say in the matter since the walkers were right on his tail. He hoped that he was driving all of them away, or at least the majority of them so that Andrea and Shane could go in and look for Amy, but it wasn't a very strong hope. He had to watch his feet half the time to make sure that he didn't trip over them and make himself bait for the dead, but he was hard pressed since he never had been very graceful. At the end of the street he turned left, planning to make his way completely around back to the store once he had abandoned the walkers about a block behind if he even got that far. It was probably just the fact that he was thinking about it that jinxed him and made him face-plant, striking his already cut cheek on the pavement. Stars winked before him as he raised his head and clawed his way forward inch by inch until he heard the moans behind him which fueled his urge to get up and make a run for it. A walker grabbed his ankle in its filthy and rotting hand but he kicked out at it as he flipped onto his back and crawled backwards, though that was probably the stupidest thing he could have done. He saw just how many walkers he had gotten to follow him and the sight did nothing to comfort him at all but rather want to let go of his bowels. He had no gun, no knife, no real weapon, but his bat was all he needed as he jabbed it at the walker that was trying to take a bite out of his shoe. Blood ran down the side of his face and onto his neck as he scrambled to his feet and started jogging off towards the next intersection where he hoped to be able to take another left, one more left after that, and end back up on the street he had started, but he couldn't get too far ahead or the walkers might go back towards the shop on their own. He had to wait until he was just close enough to have their full attention before he broke into a sprint.

His head began to ache, his body started to break out into involuntary jerking as his legs overlapped, unable to support him anymore. He started to doubt whether he was going to make it, positive that he was going to collapse at any moment and be unable to get back up but as he hit the last corner before he ended up back on the starting street, he straightened his legs out and began to pump his arms madly, determined to outrun the dead and make it back to the Wagon if it was still there…if they hadn't left him.

Why would they? He had convinced himself that they cared about him enough to nose into his personal affairs, so they wouldn't leave him, right?

_Wouldn't blame 'em if they did. It ain't like I'm worth sticking around for no how._

Sprinting, that was the word. It was the cause of his lungs feeling like they were being ripped open with a sharp knife, the reason why he had an unbearable stitch in his side, but sprint he did and soon he had left the walkers behind as he began to slow down. The Wagon was still there, but Dale was not in it like he should have been. Jim grasped the broken window frame to steady himself as he came upon AutoZone and there was still shattered glass where he had held on which sliced through his palm. Bawling his fist, he stepped over the frame, calling out to Andrea. He staggered up one aisle and down another, seeing no one, hearing nothing until he came to the back where the closet was located. He saw two walkers standing there staring dumbly at him and attempted to raise his bat, but the bloodied weapon was too heavy to lift in his worn out hands. From behind the register counter he saw Shane and Dale rise up with an axe and a crowbar and go to town on the walkers.

Jim laughed, a sound that was not welcome in the ghost town as it echoed eerily off the walls. He supposed that right now he probably looked insane—he certainly _felt_ like it. He tumbled sideways into a row of shelves and knocked the entire thing over. Paint cans, boxes of light bulbs and other miscellaneous objects rained down on him so that he was half buried. He lay there staring up at the rafters and wondering vaguely if Glenn had been bitten by being too tired to defend himself much like how Jim felt now. A shadow blocked out the light to his left and the next moment he felt grubby hands pull him upright. Someone slapped him across the face and he blinked, bringing Ed into focus but with how swollen his nose was, Jim would have preferred for him to stay blurry.

"I'll hitcha again if you don't pull it together and learn to stay quiet you dumb bastard," he whispered.

"Is he bit, Ed?" asked Shane, creeping forward.

"No, he's just fine, though he wouldn't be if he had brought walkers down on us," said Ed with a scowl.

"Then let's open that closet door back up and get the hell out of here," said Dale as he wrenched the door in question open to reveal Andrea and Amy crouching in a pool of Glenn's blood. Andrea rushed to Jim and threw her arms around him, nearly knocking the wind out of him. Only by Ed's quick thinking in keeping Jim standing did they not fall over. Jim slipped out of Andrea's grip as he went to help Dale pry Amy from Glenn's body.

"Amy, you have to leave him; there's more walkers coming and we don't have time."

"I got away because of him and I'm not about to leave him!" Amy shrieked, looping her arm around Glenn's.

"Don't by stupid, Amy-," Shane began, but Dale cut him off.

"Just get the damn body and carry it back to the Wagon already! Amy, let go of him so we can carry him out. Andrea, you and your sister help Jim out of here. Ed, give Shane a hand."

Jim pointed insistently out the window where the walkers were appearing at the end of the street. Shane cursed and went to start taking out the front line as Dale started up the Wagon.

"No time, Dale, we gotta bail _now_!" Shane hollered. "Everyone in the Wagon! C'mon, we gotta go!"

Andrea tugged on Jim's arm as Ed literally dragged Amy away from the open closet door but she was putting up one hell of a fight and Ed even went as far as to shake her forcibly which was probably the reason why she bit him in the arm. Fuming, Ed smacked her across the face, thundering, "Bitch, I'll teach you to bite me!"

Jim and Andrea doubled back at the same time and hit Ed in two separate spots: the jawbone and the groin. Andrea pulled Amy away from him as Jim swung his bat threateningly. He longed to bring it up and over into Ed's head, spilling his brains all over the ground because as far as he was concerned, Ed was no better than a walker, but Jim himself was human and wouldn't stoop that low.

"Don't you ever—not ever again," he said, hoping that his slur of words came across as a threat rather than a drunk man's speech. Ed grasped his hands over his crotch, blowing air hard out of his nose as he tried to gain control over himself after just being assaulted. Jim turned around and hobbled back towards the Wagon where Andrea held out her hand to help him on. He nearly crumpled straight into her lap, but held himself up with one arm, setting his bat down on the floor at their feet. Behind him Ed was just climbing in when a walker took hold of his pants and dragged him back out. Jim reacted fast, reaching his hand out to take a fistful of Ed's shirt.

Andrea was screaming for Dale to step on it and for Jim to let go…Amy was sobbing in the back seat…Shane was nowhere to be found…but Jim held fast. His grip was so tight that as the walkers pulled on Ed, the material under Jim's fingers actually began to cut his already bleeding hands. He met Ed's eyes, wondering what he saw there and if ever Ed had had a spot of remorse in his heart. Ed's face was unreadable, even as the first walker sank its jaws deep into his calf muscle and began to rip out long lines of flesh. With one almighty tug both Ed and Jim were pulled from the Wagon and as Jim hit his head on the concrete, Ed wrenched his arm out of Jim's grip. Jim saw a swarm of the undead crowd around Ed to begin their feast.

Only then did he hear Ed Peltier's screams which sounded just as terrified, just as high-pitched as Tara's and Dylan's had been. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the sound, but it was like trying to stop yourself from hearing period. No matter how much he scrunched up his face, he still heard everything; the squelchy sound of flesh, blood, and innards being bitten into by rows of jagged teeth, the din of the dead moaning together in an unholy harmony, but most of all he listened to Ed's screams as they started out high and began to fade out as the seconds dragged on.

He lifted his arm and splayed out his fingers in one final attempt to help, for he could not bear the shame of watching someone else be killed before his eyes without doing _something_.

Jim's eyes flashed open once so that all he could see was a screen of white before he blacked out.


	10. Chapter 10: Bright Blue Orbs

When he came to he awoke with a ghost of a scream ringing in his eardrums. He sat up, scrabbling for Tara's image that was so clear in his mind, but as he bonked his head on the low Wagon ceiling he remembered that his wife had been gone for quite a while now. Warm and comforting hands eased him back down by the shoulders and he saw Andrea's face swimming before him. She felt his forehead and called out in voice that seemed very distant, "He's awake, Shane and he seems to be all there." Jim sat up very slowly, retreating into himself to feel for any wounds and as he began to examine his arms Andrea calmed him. "You're fine; they didn't get you. Shane picked you up in time. Why'd you grab onto Ed, you stupid bastard? You could have been killed."

"Instinct," said Jim, touching his face and head where they had recently been abused. "After what happened to my family, I wasn't gonna…" He left his sentence unfinished, chiding himself for spilling out emotional details.

"What happened to your family?" asked Andrea softly.

Over her shoulder Jim saw Amy sitting in the seat behind Shane holding her knees to her chest. No one else seemed to be paying him any attention besides Andrea. He pulled himself up so that his cheek was resting on the seat and he was on eye level with her. She touched the fresh cut on his face and he saw encouragement in her eyes, compassion, understanding.

"Walkers. We were running…walkers caught up with us. My son Mark ran, the older one Dylan didn't make it. My wife Tara…they're all dead. It was my fault." He didn't know how to put it into more words. What was there left to tell? His family had followed him, trusted him, and he had let them down by allowing the walkers to kill them. In every sense of the word he had failed them and now he was admitting this aloud to someone he hardly even knew. Now Andrea would know and resent him, hate him for leading his family to their deaths. And when he lost her, his life would spiral down all over again. So why, why the _hell_ did he tell her?

She crawled over her seat to sit down next to him and rested her head on his shoulder, rubbing a comforting hand over his back and grasping his wrist. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry, Jim. I told you I was here to help you and I'll do whatever I can. Just stay with me. Don't stick your neck out for something that isn't worth it. I don't care if there's a walker eating me from the feet up, I don't want you to intervene."

"But you're worth it," said Jim shyly. He was embarrassed to see tears clinging to Andrea's eye line.

"Jim…" she gave a small shrug of her shoulder to show Jim that she didn't know what to say, but she snuggled in closer to him. Jim didn't know how to react or if he should. He simply sat there, feeling her warmth against his skin, inhaling the scent of her hair, and for once not feeling guilty that he was betraying Tara's memory. She would have wanted him to keep going for as long as he could, for as long as he wanted to and Andrea was heaven-sent, perhaps even sent by Tara herself to be everything he needed.

"Something's wrong," said Shane from the front. "We should have passed the Buick by now but it's gone." Jim didn't like the tone in Shane's voice. He personally couldn't see where the problem was, but Shane seemed to think that there was a greater danger just ahead. He straightened up a little in his seat and leaned towards the window, watching Shane for further reaction.

"Shane, what's wrong?" Andrea asked.

"Roll down the windows and listen," said Shane, cranking the window. "I hear voices."

Jim popped the window as far as it opened in the back and pressed his ear to it. He and Andrea both heard the sound echoing for miles around: screams. _Human screams_.

"The camp, the others," Andrea gasped. "Jim-,"

"I know, I know," said Jim, feeling very sick to his stomach. He was anticipating the worst, but with his cheek burning, his head aching, and his body running on empty, he knew that there was almost nothing he could do to help anyone. But what sort of trouble could they possibly be in? Walkers? There couldn't be _that_ many walkers, could there? Perhaps Merle Dixon had pulled some stunt and gotten his brother riled up or something.

"Be ready, people, we don't know what we're expecting here."

Jim saw the exchange between Dale and Shane and edged forward into the next seat so that he'd be ready to jump out of the Wagon as soon as they arrived, but Shane pointed straight at him with a firm shake of his head.

"Not you, Jim, you ain't strong enough. Stay in the Wagon and don't you dare try to come out 'cuz you're only gonna get y'self killed."

"I can help," Jim insisted.

"No," said Andrea, scooting into the seat beside him. "Just stay here, keep a watch on Amy and don't do anything stupid. I mean it."

"But-,"

"_Jim_." Andrea took his face in both of her hands, staring him dead center in the eye to show that she was not bullshitting. "Stay _here_, okay? We'll take care of this."

"Somehow I doubt that," Jim muttered.

"Oh, _shit_," said Dale. They had made the last turn into the camp and it was complete pandemonium. Where the walkers came from didn't matter; all that mattered was that they were here, now, and the survivors were running left and right and everywhere in between. Ed's wife and daughter were atop the RV, hugging each other and lying down flat so that the walkers would not see them. Daryl was using a frying pan as a striking weapon and about ten feet away Merle was tussling with another. Lori had a long metallic spike in hand trying to keep the walkers away from Carl who was armed only with the knife Merle had previously given him.

Shane and Andrea soared out of the Wagon and Andrea even took the time to slam and lock the door so that Jim couldn't follow. Dale came in as Shane's back up, firing at a walker within his sights. Jim was pressing his face so closely to the glass that his breath was leaving fug prints as he gazed on in the utmost horror. There was nothing—nothing that he could do. He had nothing to give, his energy was spent and all he had in hand was his…his _bat_.

That was all he needed.

They couldn't lock him up in here and expect him to do nothing when everything and everyone he cared for was separated from him by a thin layer of cheap glass. He put his hand up, touching the coolness of the window as he stood up in a bent over position, steeling himself for what he was about to do.

"What are you doing?" asked Amy from behind him. "You promised that you wouldn't go out there!"

Jim gave her a partial frown, not because he found her words to be annoying, but because she didn't understand.

"I promised no such thing," he told her. He clambered into the front seat, fumbling with the door handle and hoping that Shane hadn't made it so that it could only be opened from the outside. Apparently he had and Jim smashed his bat into the window and then crawled out over the broken glass. His footing was unsteady as he touched uneven ground. He could have run anywhere, gone to help anyone, but he chose to go to Lori's aid as she struggled to keep the walkers at bay. In seven long, swayed strides, he had reached her and pummeled his bat at the walker nearest to her. Scooping up Carl, he handed him over to Lori and told her to run for the Wagon and lock the door from the inside. He guarded their escape and when he heard a woman yell he made a wild whirl around.

He cringed and took a full step back in shock as he saw someone overwhelmed further on down the trail. It was impossible to tell who the person was from this distance and as he started to narrow his eyes to get a better look, Merle gave an ear shattering scream as jaws ripped into the flesh along his shoulder blade. Jim held the bat loosely in his hand, knowing that it was too late to save him and cursing himself for it. Merle stabbed his knife into the undead opponent's skull and another one took its place.

A gunshot went off next to Jim's ear and the report rang out in several seconds of succession. He clapped a hand to his ear and staggered to the right, grinding his teeth against each other as the pain reverberated in his head. Daryl went rushing to his brother who now stood alone next to a pile of put down walkers, leaving Jim alone to stumble around like a drunken man. He was disoriented; images swam in and out of focus and his world spun, flipping, twisting, and flashing before him. Snarls came from all sides, but he could see nothing. He groped for something reassuring, something safe, but found nothing.

_God help me. Tara…Andrea…_

He saw her, throwing herself forward and dragging him away from the heat of the battle. She had some sort of weapon in her hand, but his vision was still too fuzzy to make it out. He leaned into her, blinking rapidly and shaking his head back and forth to try and regain focus, but it was like trying to drink water upside down. It hurt and it was damn near impossible. Whether it was her voice or his own conscience, Jim heard someone repeating a word to him. _Focus…focus…_

He could make out the shape of something coming up behind Andrea and it wasn't one of the other survivors. Shoving her down by the head, he brought his bat behind his right shoulder and then let it loose four times against the walker's cheek bone. On the fourth strike he heard splintering wood and with a numb jolt in his stomach, he looked on at the remains of his finally beaten bat. It had served him its last as it broke in two with the top end dangling by just a few strips of wood.

Something grabbed him on the upper shoulder and he felt a sharp pain, realizing that it must have been Andrea's fingernails as she pushed him aside and he hit the gravel hard on his left hip. Tasting dirt, he pushed himself up with his knuckles, still clutching the jagged handle of his bat. The next sound to puncture his ear drums was that of his last chance and last hope dying on the humid air. His vision, his hearing, and all of his other senses came back in full just in time for him to see a walker use its dirty, decayed teeth to take a bite out of Andrea's chest right above her heart. Decomposed flesh met her pure skin and tore it to shreds.

Jim felt nothing but irrevocable, unquenchable, unfair fucking _hate_. Hate for everything that worked against him, that made him live alone in this forsaken world and as he saw Andrea's blood stain the walker's teeth, he died for the second time. He raised what remained of his bat and jabbed it clean through the walker's cranium so that old purple blood squirted out in all directions. He unstuck the bat from the head by prying it out with his foot and then stabbed again and again, keeping track of every single blow. By the count of fifty the walker had no face and almost no head. When he finally dropped the handle, he crawled to Andrea, parting her beautiful blonde hair from her sticky forehead that was also caked in her own blood. He lifted her head and placed it gently in his lap, listening to her gagging noises and doing his best to calm her.

"Shh, shh, I gotcha, I'm here," he said to her, stroking the apple of her cheek with his thumb. One of her hands was covering her wound, soaked through with scarlet and quaking. Her lips formed her sister's name and although no sound came out, Jim assured her that Amy was safe. Her right hand found its way to his heart and she planted her palm against it, leaving a bloody handprint before it lifted up to trace the outline of his face with her forefinger.

"Andrea…lookit me, please…"

Her dazzling blue eyes rested on his and inside them he found everything he had been searching for. She smiled full on, tears glistening on her eyelashes and right before the first one rolled down the side of her face, her skin went cold against his, her heart stopped beating, and the blue orbs of light blew out. Jim did not turn his gaze, seeing Andrea in his arms, but knowing that she wasn't there anymore. He heard Daryl Dixon crying out to the heavens, heard someone else swearing, but none of it mattered because Jim was finished and his life was over.

All over…again.


	11. Chapter 11: The Edge of Eternity

It was almost completely dark by the time Jim moved at all. A cramp had started up in his leg after about ten minutes of sitting on his knees, but he had been able to ignore it. No one spoke to him or came within ten feet of him and though he could hear them moving about on all sides, he had eyes for no one but Andrea as he cradled her head and stroked her hair with his thumb. It was all mindless blabber in his head and it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Not one—damn—thing. She was gone and even as he clutched at her body with pale white hands smothered in her blood, he knew how useless his actions were. As he watched the blood continue to gush out of her wound he had a sudden urge to smack her across the face and curse her for trying to save him. It wasn't her place, it wasn't her responsibility, _he_ wasn't her responsibility and if she had just had enough sense to see that she wouldn't be…

Once or twice he thought he might have heard Shane or Dale call his name, but he was oblivious to the goings-on around him. He thoroughly believed that if he waited long enough, if he squeezed her hands hard enough, if he prayed desperately enough, he could will her back to life. But as the ugly, gaping bite mark stared back at him in contempt he knew that he would have to do the inevitable soon. She had died once in his arms and the very thought of watching her die again was more than he could handle. Someone else would have to do it…but how could he let them? Amy wouldn't be able to, for she was now emotionally distraught by the death of two people she loved. Dale might be able to, but in truth, Jim knew Andrea just as much if not more than the older man, which gave him not only the right but the responsibility to put her down a second time.

"Jim?"

The voice sounded different than what Jim had heard in the back of his brain for the majority of the day. This one was softer, younger, kinder. He saw a foot out of the corner of his eye wearing a small pair of blue Converse. Carl knelt beside him and reached out a precarious hand to pat Andrea's arm.

"Mom says she's okay now," said the boy, moving his hand to rest on Jim's shoulder. "Y'know what? I believe her. I think Andrea's just fine and you will be too. Here," he held out a pack of Blackcat firecrackers to Jim, "will you light these for me when you bury her? Shane said that sometimes when people die they fire off guns as a salute, but I'm not allowed to use one, so if you'd light this for me, I'd appreciate it."

The question was so innocent, so simple, and so ignorant that Jim nodded slightly and stuffed the firework into his garage suit pocket as Carl walked away only to be replaced by Dale and Amy who came to the ground across from Jim. Dale looked weak and very frail, something that everyone assumed him to be due to his age, but something that he had managed to never show until this moment. He put his arm around Amy who leaned against him and covered her eyes as her tears began anew.

"She came to say goodbye," Dale explained in a throaty voice.

Jim gingerly placed Andrea's head on the ground and stood up, surprised that he wasn't shaking and didn't feel dizzy. He noticed that the Buick was parked beside the Jeep Wrangler; someone (most likely the Dixons) had gone off to fix it and bring it back to camp. Behind him he saw Daryl standing just beyond the can alarms and in full shade of the trees hacking away at the dirt with a pick axe as he started to fashion out a grave for his brother who lay dead several feet to the left. Merle had been bitten three times and still had an arrow sticking out of his brain where Daryl had taken it upon himself to take out his brother's brain before he reanimated. Not really sure why, Jim picked up a shovel and trudged over to where Daryl was digging and without waiting for an invitation, began to turn up the dirt, lifting and tossing it aside. Daryl made no protest to his help and neither did he encourage it, but rather remained silent besides an occasional sniff. In less than half an hour they had dug a three foot deep and six foot wide hole.

Daryl undid a small necklace around Merle's neck and unsheathed the thick blade from his belt, setting the memoirs aside as he pressed Merle's eyelids shut. Here he broke down, unable to pull the arrow from his brother's skull. Jim took pity on him and wrapped his fingers around the wooden part of the arrow, pushing against Merle's head ever so slightly with his other hand to pry the metal tip out. Dropping the arrow, he helped Daryl lift Merle and carry him the distance to the grave where he stepped down first and set Merle's heels down. Daryl rested Merle's head in the soft earth and clawed his way out of the hole. For a few moments he could only linger above as if waiting for his brother to stand up, brush himself off, and perhaps curse at him, but then he seemed to come to his senses and began to pile the dirt back into the hole.

Jim did not help him this time, retreating to the middle of the trail where he slowly revolved in a circle, wishing for another walker to emerge from the woods so that he could either send it back to hell or else allow it to bite him so that he would have a ready-made excuse to end his suffering. He had been willing to try again, to start over when Andrea had extended her kindness but _she_ had been the reason why he wanted to keep going. Now that he didn't have her, what was the point? Was there a point?

Not anymore. Not now, or later, or ever.

He hiked down the hillside a few dozen yards and picked out a spot overlooking the countryside. Andrea would have chosen this spot for him, had their places been switched, he was sure of it. All alone this time, he dug a much deeper hole for her so that nothing could go burrowing into the ground and disturb her body. With every blister he felt rising on his palms, every ache in his back from bending over, every jam of the shovel blade into the ground he envisioned his final moments with her. She had touched his face, left a mark there, but it would wear away whereas the one she had imprinted on his heart would never fade. It would break, it _had_ broken, and it would never mend, but it would always be there and reap his soul until the day he died. Tara, Dylan, Mark, Andrea…all his fault. He didn't have the luxury of burying his family, but as he continued to dig he reminded himself that Andrea had been his family as well. She _still_ was his family. She had forced that upon him the first time she reached out a hand to comfort him and it had taken him this long to accept the fact.

She didn't deserve this. He should have stayed in the Wagon. His family hadn't earned their premature deaths either, for it was all his fault for making them leave the shelter of their home. How could he justify now? How could he possibly continue living when the world was so empty, so cold, so damned? As he climbed out of the grave, he saw the cliff stretch out before him and thought of how easy it would be to just raise his leg and step off into oblivion. He didn't need Andrea's gun now; he could do it on his own, wanted to…

He lifted his right leg, extending it outward so that he was balancing on his left with eternity calling deceptively below.

But something held him back. It almost felt real and present, the force that tugged at him and recalled his decision. He could have sworn that he felt hands, smooth and feminine ones, small and adolescent ones holding onto his garage suit and begging him to not jump. He felt as if he could turn around and see his loved ones standing behind him, pleading with him, but he did not turn, deciding to step back and then head back up the trail. It seemed like such an effort, putting one foot in front of the other as he made his way towards Andrea's body.

He knew that it was now time to do what he most dreaded, but he figured that the manner in which he had decided to do it was as humane as it was possible to get. His broken bat pieces were scattered around her head and he picked up the rounded end part which was still mostly intact. There was a very sharp spike on it that would not break, he was certain. Dale was holding Amy in a fatherly fashion as they looked on at Andrea, but she didn't see Jim as he took a knee beside her sister. The older man's watchful and penetrating stare had no effect on Jim as he lifted Andrea's head and turned it sideways so that her face was inches from his shoe. He would not puncture a hole in her beautiful features. No, this mark would be hidden as best as it could be.

"Jim, a gun's easier," Dale interjected.

_A gun's evil, _thought Jim. He raised the bat high, transfixed with the finality of what he was about to do. Now his heart beat a tattoo against his chest as he prayed for her to show signs of life, signs of _Andrea_. But if she reanimated he knew he wouldn't be able to put her down, not from fear, but because his heart would explode from guilt. If he saw her veiled irises open and saw her bare her teeth at him, he would slip right then and there into the unknown realm of insanity from which there was no return.

_ Do it now_.

"Jim…"

_Now…now…NOW…_

He couldn't watch. His aim wouldn't be off; the distance was only about a foot. The dried blood on the bat was wet again, made so by the sweat dribbling out from between his fingers. His mind told him what his heart refused to believe; her fingers had moved…

_No._

His hand came down, plunging straight into the soft insides of her head. The spike went deep enough to penetrate her brain a good five inches so that the underside of his fist brushed against her hair. He withdrew the spike and tossed it away, gasping for air and gagging. At the back of his throat he tasted something metallic. His hands bawled into fists which he pressed hard against the gravel to bite back the pain building inside. Avoiding Dale's eyes, he lifted Andrea in his arms and carried her west to her final resting place. No one accompanied him, but on his way he saw Daryl patting the churned up earth into place as he finished filling Merle's grave.

At Andrea's gravesite Jim stepped off level ground and jumped down into the hole, holding Andrea tight to his chest. There was flesh blood staining her ear and temple, but when he set her down he placed the unmarked side of her face upward. He had no motivation to fill up the grave right now. He wanted to spend as much time left with her as he could, however much time he had left and so he came onto his knees once again, though he noted now much softer the ground was here. Despite his height, he was rather flexible and was therefore able to bend his body forward and touch his forehead to hers. How long he stayed in this position he didn't know, didn't give a damn either.

He would stay here all night and no one would try to convince him otherwise. At first he had had only suspicions, but now he was positive of what his gut was telling him. His time was waning, but he knew what he wanted and the only way he could accomplish it was by using the object tucked into his back pocket.


	12. Chapter 12: Punishment Dealt

He knew he'd have to be quick. Despite the fuzziness and numb shock Andrea's death had left him in, in the back of his brain he knew that the only way he would be able to get to the Jeep Wrangler was if everyone else was occupied someplace else and so he took the small firecracker Carl had given to him along with a single match and went off down the east trail to find a small enclosure where he could plant the distraction. Sweating over his lips so that he tasted salt, he struck the match against the ground and placed the firecracker in the grass. He waved the match against the Blackcat's fuse and it caught the fire quickly.

He ran. It would cost him some time to take the long way around, but he only had moments and if this didn't work, he'd never get out. When he was less than ten feet from the Jeep he heard the crackling as the firework went off and he ducked down behind a tree to watch Dale climb down from the RV and finish up the group as they ran towards Jim's decoy. He made a break for the Jeep, twisting his ankle slightly in the upturned gravel. Leaping into the front seat, he checked the mirror visor for the keys and found them, just where Shane had left them. Jamming the correct key into the ignition he revved the engine to life, switched it into drive, and bolted down the trail. In the rear view mirror he saw Shane and Dale running back at him, yelling something indistinguishable, but he kept his eyes on the road. He knew that in moments Shane would start up one of the other vehicles and come after him, but he had to get to the main road first and then he could push the pedal to the floor. No one was going to stop him, nothing was going to get in his way except—

He gagged, tasting copper on his tongue and leaned sideways to spit out a line of bloody saliva. His vision went blurry for a moment and he keeled over onto the wheel, honking the horn as he tried to make the pain in his shoulder subside by digging his fingernails into it while keeping the injured arm straight. As suddenly as it had come, the pain was gone and he swallowed back a bit of vomit as the Jeep gave an unruly jump, making him bite down on his lip. He saw the main road just ahead but heard the Buick's horn beep somewhere behind him.

_Honk all you want, I ain't turning back._

He knew the way from here, having traveled this by-road many times on his way home from work just to view the scenery. But now he had no time for the fields of green or the lush foliage; he needed to get as far ahead of Shane as he could. He nearly stomped a hole through the floor as he pressed down on the pedal, feeling a dull thrill at the prospect of going well over a hundred miles an hour on a road meant for forty mile driving with no cops to stop him, save for Shane. The highway would still be jam-packed with cars that would never go anywhere again and so he would go underneath it, get off the road and travel free-style, even run over the fence making the boundary around the neighborhood if he had to. In no time he saw the fence, the one he had climbed in what seemed like years ago, but he crashed into it and continued driving down the familiar and yet hostile street to the one story house in between the park and the lake. He had put his bat in the back of the Jeep earlier that day and now he took it out as he turned the car off. There were walkers here and there, but they were still too far off to be any threat to him.

He heard another car rolling down the street towards him and saw Shane and Dale in the front seat, looking livid and frightened respectively. Jim dashed up the steps into his house that was now coated with a thin layer of dust on the inside and slammed the door shut, double bolting it just as he heard the Buick come to a screeching stop on his lawn. He felt the door threaten to give in as Shane pounded on it and hollered, "Jim, you get your ass out here right now, are you fucking insane?"

"I didn't ask no one to follow me," Jim called with his back to the door. He saw the remains of the sliding glass door on the carpet and wondered briefly if any more walkers had come in since the first two. "You can't tell me what the right thing to do is anymore, Shane. Why can't you people just leave me the fuckin' hell alone? If you had it wouldn'ta come to this. She'd still be alive!"

Dale's voice came through the door, soft and determinedly kind, but that only made Jim angrier. That man had _no_ right being so calm when, if Jim had had his way, the entire world would be screaming in agony, the people would be on all fours pounding their fists on the ground, and the fires of hell would slowly begin to envelop all humanity.

"Jim, open the door. We aren't going to hurt you."

"You'll have to eventually!"

"No-,"

"I was bitten right before Andrea shoved me outta the way!" Jim shouted, feeling tears brimming in the corners of his eyes. "She tried to save me when she had no right. I didn't wanna be saved but she did it anyway and those bastards killed her. One of 'em bit me at the same time that she pushed me. She was tryin' to help me before it could sink its teeth in. And I still got bitten so she died for fucking _nothing_! Just like my family, my wife and boys! Damn you, can't you understand that? I can't do this anymore! Let me die here and just leave me alone!"

There was silence on the other side of the door, but when Shane spoke again, his voice was full of understanding. "Jim, please, we don't want ya to go out like this. There's people back at camp and right here on your doorstep that care about you. We'd rather see you spend your last minutes with us than watch you succumb to the fever on the floor. You're part of this group, this surrogate family and we _care_ about you. Can't you understand _that_?"

"Funny how the people that care about me tend to come off worse than if they didn't know me," said Jim resolutely. "Andrea made that mistake." He heard and felt Dale's voice as if the older man was pressing his lips to the door so that the vibration made it through the wood.

"She loved you, Jim. I know she did and you do too. She wanted to help you and you can't let that weigh on your shoulders. Caring about someone is not something to be ashamed of. She didn't die _because_ of you; she died _for_ all of us and she wouldn't want you to end it like this."

Jim sank down onto the floor, hugging his knees to his chest as the tears ran free from his eyes, spilling down his grimy cheeks. His sobs turned into a hacking cough as he felt another wave of pain coming on. He dropped onto his side, clutching his wound with his fingers that were still stained with Andrea's blood.

"Jim, are you alright? Open the door, c'mon. Open up, Jim, let us in!" said Shane urgently.

Fumbling for the double bolt, Jim turned it and then undid the smaller one. Dale opened the door, but Jim was still in the way and so it hit him in the small of his back, causing him to puke red all over the floor. He clasped his eyes shut, willing the pain to subside when he felt Shane and Dale's hands pry his own open so that they could see his bite mark. He had known about it ever since he had stabbed the broken half of the bat into Andrea's head. It was then that he had first felt it, felt the taste of blood and the ache in every muscle and bone. Right before Andrea had pushed him down out of the way the walker had bitten into his shoulder and the pain he mistook to be Andrea's fingernails was actually teeth raking the skin. His garage suit had disguised most of the blood as well as the fact that he had Andrea's blood all over his front side. No one would have suspected him, and no one did, which was why they hadn't been keeping watch on him. It was only a matter of time now and he knew he had to spend it here, waiting for hell to come to him. He deserved this; this was his punishment for his family and for Andrea. Dale pulled him up by the front of his shirt into a sitting position and lightly tapped his face with the back of his hand.

"Stay with us, Jim, focus."

"Let go've me," said Jim, trying futilely to draw away.

"Let us take you back with us," Shane begged. "Let us do this for you."

"Nobody owes me nothin' so piss off."

Shane seized Jim by the front of his garage suit and pulled him up into a standing position. Jim cried out at the sudden movement, accidentally spraying Shane with saliva and blood. He beat his bruised fist against Shane's chest to no avail as the former officer made to drag him out the door.

"Damn you, Shane, let _go_! Lemme go, you bastard!" He saw a frame sitting undisturbed in the small alcove where Tara had insisted that Jim keep his keys out of so that the first thing visitors would see upon entering the house would be a photograph of the family. He closed his fingers around the silver frame and hugged it to his chest for a moment before Dale managed to stop Shane and help Jim rest on the now vacant alcove. Very gently Dale pulled the frame back so that the glass surface was exposed and as he looked down at the occupants of the picture, Jim was embarrassed to find tears brewing in the older man's eyes.

"Is this them?"

Jim nodded his head. It seemed that his life since losing his family had been nods and shakes, never words, which he regretted now. He should have been more open to Andrea, given her more to work with. Things might have been different if he had.

"They died just down the street," he sobbed. "I escaped and they didn't, Andrea didn't, and now I don't have to. Lemme stay here."

"Speaking on behalf of your best interest, Jim, I don't think that what you really want is to mutate into one of those things. I can give you a gun, you have every right to one now, but only if you let us take you back to camp where you belong. I think you owe me that; I picked you up off of the highway."

Jim started to laugh and then that turned into a maddened cough. Shane thumped him on the back and waited for him to regain control of himself but when he did he pointed a red finger at Dale. "I didn't ask you to pick me up, did I?"

"But I did anyway. It's because of me that you even met Andrea. Damn it, I care about you, son, and I can't bring myself to leave you here!"

"You just don't get it, do ya, Jim?" asked Shane. "All of us are all you have left and we're not about t'leave you here so that the walkers can pick you clean. Come back to camp with us and then we'll let you do whatever the hell y'want."

"If Andrea had lemme do whatever the hell I wanted she'd be back at camp right now and so would you. No one wouldda had to bother with me."

"But that's not what happened, Jim, so deal with what's happening now. We can get you out while there's still time."

"I ain't gonna risk biting somebody."

"You won't have to. If you feel it comin' on…" Shane handed Jim his revolver.

Licking his lips, Jim opened the back of the picture frame and slid the photo out, stuffing it into his pocket as he tucked the revolver into his belt. He ran his hand along the framework around the door and allowed Dale and Shane to lead him out the door.


	13. Chapter 13: The Beyond

The entire episode inside Jim's house had taken less than five minutes which was more than enough time for the seemingly faraway walkers to close a considerable distance. There were several of them gathering curiously around the house and cars but Shane was able to take them out with some help from Dale while Jim stood partially hidden on the porch. As the others dealt with the dead Jim leaned against the drain pipe for support, observing the street with painful memories flooding into his mind. He saw echoes of himself and Dylan pitching a baseball to each other on the sidewalk, of Tara helping Mark steady himself on his roller skates, of their neighbors walking their dogs towards the lake. All of it was gone now, replaced with some sick imitation of activity only carried out by mindless walking corpses. His wife and sons had died here, but he would not share the destination of that fate. He would be buried where he chose and not remain a rotting carcass for time to wither away.

Blood splattered everywhere…brains caved in…bones shattered…bodies fell…and Jim watched it all, taking it in with a sort of ecstatic fervor, not out of the need to see the carnage, but rather to alert him to the very real possibility of Shane and Dale having to dispose of him in such a manner. The teenage girl Heather from across the street went down as Dale stuck his pick axe in her skull. Her older brother Breyton was still meandering around in their yard, not yet aware that very edible human beings were just meters away. To see those he had known for the better part of fifteen years re-slaughtered by those he had known for a month was enough to make Jim break out in cold sweat and start drooling blood again. He wiped a feeble hand across his mouth and hugged his stomach, going slightly cross-eyed. Shane went to take out another walker but Jim called him off, ripping his vocal cords as he screamed.

Shane turned to him in puzzlement, and backed up in unison as the walker advanced on Jim. It was small, a child…_his_ child. His son…

Mark.

His unknown fate became clear; the walkers had bitten him. There was a set of teeth indentations on his small arm, most of which had rotted away to reveal molted gray flesh and deteriorating muscle. He had no blood around his mouth which told Jim that his reanimated son had not feasted on any human beings. Thank God for small favors. Painstakingly, agonizingly, Jim stumbled forward, eyes drinking in the sight of his son with great thirst, but at the same time wanting to clap shut or look away from the horrid sight. The sound of his baby boy snarling at him almost in hatred made him go weak at the knees and he wobbled unsteadily as his son crept forward, sizing him up as far as trying to find out the easiest way to grab him.

Somewhere behind him Jim heard Dale roaring at him to get back, but his son's corpse was like a magnet, pulling him in with some sort of twisted attraction. He wanted to feel Mark's face, feel his small body cradled in his arms just one more time, and apologize for everything he had done to his poor boy.

"Mark…" said Jim, reaching out his hand for his child.

"Jim, get back now!" Shane thundered.

But Jim was now possessed by a demon, drawn to this disease from hell that had claimed his son as if Mark was his life source.

This—this _thing_, however, was not his son, did not remember him or even _see_ him, but rather saw a meal coming at it. His son was gone, had been for quite a long time and he was only prolonging his suffering and fooling himself by thinking that a portion of his child would come back and recognize his father.

"_Jim!_"

The walker child widened its jaws and broke into a hastened stagger. Jim felt the pistol in his belt and very slowly, almost slower than reality, revealed it, cocking it and using his left hand to steady his right as he brought the walker's head into focus. He kept his sight right down the center of the weapon, feeling all the tears he had left to spare squeeze out of his eyes. As he had with Andrea, he closed them, certain of his ability to hit his target. He pulled the trigger and heard the report, but couldn't bring himself to look.

"Dale," he called hoarsely. The older man appeared at his side and Jim pointed in Mark's general direction. "I want to bring him back with me."

"Why?" asked Shane as Jim replaced the revolver in his belt.

"That was my son."

No one asked any questions after that.

Shane loaded Mark's body into the back of the Jeep and Dale helped Jim into the passenger seat of the Buick. With Shane in the lead they drove out of the neighborhood, back over the flattened fence, under the highway, and onto the by-road. Jim watched the scenery and absorbed it, pleasantly enjoying the quality of it and the fact that it seemed untouched by the apocalypse happening all around. In the window's reflection Jim saw Dale repeatedly glancing at him as if he were anticipating the reanimation process.

Halfway through the drive Jim felt the uncomfortable lurch in his stomach but had no time to crank down the window and so he flung the door open and vomited red onto the street as they drove at a forty mile cruising speed. When the last sliver of spit had come out Jim jammed the door shut and sank low in his seat, moaning. Dale looked anxiously over at him.

"'M'okay," Jim muttered.

"We're almost there, just hang on," said Dale.

In short, Jim could have described the ride on the trail as hell. No less, nothing more descriptive. Just pure hell. Upon their arrival back at camp, Jim didn't wait for Dale to come around and help, but opened the door and tumbled out, staying put where he had fallen until two pairs of hands lifted him up by the shoulders and he gave a sharp gasp of pain. He glanced up into Amy and Carl's faces, both of which were ash-colored.

"Shane's taking him to where Merle's buried," said Dale as he extended a hand to help.

"No," said Jim, swallowing stray droplets of blood coating his throat. "I want 'im beside me."

"Well…where are you planning on going?" asked Dale uncomfortably.

Jim pointed briefly to the rear where Andrea's gravesite was, still not completed. "I go where I fall. When I can't get up no more, that's where I go."

Dale lifted Jim's chin to examine his eyes and check for sanity before nodding and going off to pass the instructions on to Shane. Amy had a confused look on her face as did Carl after Dale had left.

"What're you talking about? What's wrong?" asked Carl.

"Bit," said Jim, lowering his shoulder slightly so that the two could see. Straight away he wished he hadn't for Amy threw her arms around his neck in an act so similar to her sister that Jim forcibly reminded himself that it was not Andrea who held him. Carl hugged Jim's knees, the highest part he could reach.

"You can't," he wailed into Jim's pant leg.

Biting back the emotion in his throat, Jim turned Carl's face upward, seeing both of his children in that freckled face. He knew that Carl looked up to him, saw him as a surrogate father along with Shane and Dale, and would be grief stricken after Jim had gone, but there was little he could do to fix that. Now, when it was too late, Jim wished that he had more time. But of course, he didn't.

"You'll be fine," he told Carl and patting Amy's arm, he added, "both of you. I promise."

_I promise._

He was leaving them in good hands and he could guarantee their safety for at least a while.

Dale returned to escort Jim to the outcrop where Andrea was lying but not yet buried. Amy planted a swift kiss upon Jim's cheek and Carl squeezed Jim's hand. They both had waterfalls of salt tears pouring down their faces as Jim turned his back on them. Upon Jim's request, Dale had brought the backpack Jim had salvaged from his first escape. Shane was at the site with Mark's body at his side and a spade in hand, but Jim shook his head.

"No, I'll dig it," he said, holding out his hand for the shovel.

"Jim, you can hardly stand up," Dale began to protest, but Jim cut him short.

"I can do it," he insisted. "He's my son. I only ask that the two've you fill in the holes when it's over."

Shane bit his lip and rubbed furiously at his eyes, but nodded. "Okay," he said finally. "Sure thing, Jim." He grasped Jim's hand and held on for a full five seconds before he turned on his heel and started back up the trail. Dale remained beside him as Jim dug the first few shovelfuls of dirt out of the soft ground and remained there when the hole was deep enough to fit Mark's small body. The owner of the 1977 Winnebago watched Jim set Mark's body down in the grave and lay a few contents of the backpack next to the boy's head. Jim combed Mark's hair straight and rubbed as much of the blood away from his forehead as he could before kissing his son's brow. He didn't have the strength to pull himself out of the hole and that, he supposed, was why Dale had remained behind. Dale offered up his hand to Jim and assisted him in grappling his way out.

"I guess this is it, huh?" asked Dale, looking his age.

Halfway through nodding, Jim spoke. "Yeah, this's it." He held out his hand, bloodied, dirty, and blistered, but Dale wrung it. "Thanks," said Jim sincerely. For the first time, he meant it.

"I'll be seeing you someday," said Dale with a bit of a sniff and then he too walked away, leaving Jim with a memory of a boatman's hat and standing between the graves of his son and dear friend. A black haze passed in front of Jim's eyes, making it impossible to see, to hear, to _feel_. As quickly as it had come, the sensation was gone, but then his lower body broke into spasms. Grabbing onto each thigh he bent double, hacking up everything he had left in his stomach. When his legs stopped shaking he caught one last glimpse of the amazing sight stretched out before him and then toppled down into Andrea's grave, landing exactly parallel to her body. He pushed himself up onto his injured side, feeling the backpack on his shoulder. He ripped the zipper open and dumped everything onto his lap, inhaling the scents on each piece of clothing. The smells were as fresh as the last day his family had worn them. Digging in his pocket, he surfaced with his family photo which he placed on his breast.

"Almost…there…" he whispered to them, to Andrea, to himself.

Her face had not yet begun to sink in with decay, still flawless, still beautiful, and unless his eyes were mistaking him, he thought he saw a golden hue outlining her figure. He reached over her to grab her far wrist and cross it with the closer one peacefully across her stomach. Trembling all over but going numb at the feet, he lowered his face next to hers and pressed his lips to her soft pale cheek.

_Thank you_…_for everything_.

He could no longer hold his head up and let it collapse in the cushioned earth. Switching his photograph to one hand, he placed that same hand on Andrea's fingers and then fumbled for the revolver in his belt. From what seemed like miles away in a world not quite real he saw the tree tops extend their shade over the graves, swaying back and forth playfully in a gentle breeze. There was not a single cloud, only clear blue emptiness extending into oblivion and the beyond.

As his body grew cold around him he felt himself partially leaving it. Warmth spread over him in blankets of woven whispers. They knew he was close; they were calling, waiting…

He placed the revolver's tip to his temple, keeping his eyes wide open. His finger activated the trigger and he saw nothing, everything, eternity, forever.

And he smiled.

**A big thanks to Newbourne5, a very loyal reviewer who has given me very positive feedback on each of my Walking Dead stories and who has written some great stories of her own!**

**Please feel free—and encouraged—to leave a comment, even if it's one word. I appreciate all reviews and if your comment warrants it, I shall be very prompt in replying to any questions you may have or extending my gratitude. Thank you for reading and hopefully this story makes its way into "Jim" history. Have a good one!**


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